Principles and Guidelines for the Modern Photowalker
Photowalking. A passion? An obsession? A disease? Maybe a combination of all of the above. I think of it more as a lifestyle, but when it gets into your blood it runs strong. Like an ex-cigarette smoker 5 days into their quitting, I get anxious and worry when I don’t have my camera with me. Is she ok? Is she feeling well? Has somebody stolen her? (Like Macs, by the way, cameras are always girls). My 5D stays with me always. I avoid places that don’t allow cameras. As much as I love contemporary art, I haven’t set foot in the MOMA here in San Francisco for about four years due to their anti photography policy.
(Updated thoughts on the SF MOMA as well as Renegade Photography here)
I’ve heard a lot of people say that they don’t like taking their camera with them or being the designated “photo person” because they don’t get to enjoy themselves wherever they are going. I’m the opposite. I enjoy myself far, far, more with my camera than I ever could without her. I see more of the world when I have my camera with me. I notice things that I wouldn’t otherwise. People’s expressions, architecture, the sky. You do more than stop and smell the roses, you take a little bit of the rose’s soul with you in your little box of metal that captures all that light.
When I am out walking my eyes are open. I see the world in color. In all its splendor and beauty. People are more real, more alive. The world is a far, far, more beautiful place.
I’ve been photowalking for a few years now and thought I’d type out some general principles and guidelines. Bear in mind that these are *my* principles and guidelines. These won’t work for everyone, especially all you anti-photography nut jobs out there — and you know who you are.
1. The camera goes with you everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It lives with you 24/7. Never, ever, leave her at home. Not just to pop out and go to the store. Not at home because, well, there’s nothing interesting at work anyways, etc. There might be something interesting *on the way* to work. A comet might come crashing into the Safeway just before you get there and you can shoot it. Etc. etc. Always bring your camera with you wherever you go.
2. Shoot every day. You eat every day. You drink water every day. You breath every day don’t you? So shoot every day too.
3. Share your work and join a community. It doesn’t matter where you share it. Share it on Flickr. Share it Zooomr. Share it on Smugmug. Share it on Pownce. Share it on your blog. Share it on Facebook, or heck, even share it on Digg now! You will get amazing feedback on your work. And more than this you will get encouragement when people comment and fave and view your work. Encouragement to the Modern Photowalker is like fuel. It motivates you. It keeps you going.
4. Give and you shall get. When you share your work, appreciate the work of others. A good general rule is that you should try and fave one shot for every shot of yours that’s faved. You should try to comment on one photo, for every photo of yours that gets commented on. It’s the yin and yang. It’s karma. There is so much amazing photography online today. Share your photos and share the love. Remember the last line of the last album the Beatles ever made. “In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Love the photography of others. Buy photography books, especially from photographers themselves. Go to their shows and openings. Buy their prints. It all comes around.
5. Never hesitate. Once I saw this shot of these gas meters in my head as I was driving by them. The street was a one way street and I didn’t slow down fast enough to get the shot. I had my kids with me and was late getting somewhere and I kept driving even though I knew in my heart that I needed to get that shot. About a mile down the road I turned back around and went and got the shot. Here’s that shot. In the end I love this shot. It means far more to me than whatever I was late for that I don’t even remember anymore. An editor at San Francisco Magazine called me up and asked if they could publish it.
There will always be reasons to skip a shot. Most of the reasons are because you are lazy. You don’t want to take your camera out of your bag. You don’t want to stop driving. You don’t want to inconvenience someone who is with you. You are worried about someone objecting to the shot. Whatever. Get over it and get the shot. You will kick yourself afterwards if you do not. I have never regretted taking a single shot in my life. I have regretted many, missed shots. Fortunately today there are fewer and fewer of those.
6. Shoot in RAW and don’t be afraid to process.
Those photo purists who tell you Photoshop is wicked? Don’t listen to them. Be a photo whore. If it looks better in blue, make it blue. If it looks better in green, make it green. If it looks better with vignetting, add it in. Bump up the saturation and contrast if you want. If HDR or tilt shift or whatever is your thing. Do your thing.
7. Know your rights. Know where you can shoot and where you cannot. Know that in general you can shoot anything from a public street. And that in general you can shoot things like subways, etc. When you are challenged about your shooting and you know you’re on good legal ground always object. Be polite. Be gentle. But be firm and object. Don’t accept this behavior from security guards or other people.
And fight back if you have to. Enshrined in just-war theory is the doctrine of proportionality. Meaning that a response to aggression should be commensurate with the act. If someone is polite with me and asks me not to shoot in public I’ll be polite back but insist on my rights. If someone on the other hand comes at me with middle fingers a blazzin, or tries to get physical, well then that’s what blogs, and things like Boing Boing and digg were made for.
8. Your purpose in creating art is a higher purpose than their misguided reasons for disallowing you to create art — which in general almost always derives from some poorly thought out argument for their economic benefit and whose policies were more often than not created by lawyers.
What does this mean? Well. If you are not allowed to take photos in the lobby of the Gap’s headquarters, take them anyways. If you are not allowed to shoot in Starbuck’s because of some lame anti-photography policy, shoot anyways. Your purpose in creating art and making the world a more beautiful place, trumps their economic interests. Call me a communist if you want. But in the same way that Banksy paints *his* murals on *their* property, you are making the world a more beautiful place by making your photographs and what you are doing doesn’t hurt anyone.
When you do need to get a shot in a place that you know you are not allowed. Prepare for it. This means have your camera settings perfectly set before you whip it out. Throw some headphones on so you can act like you don’t hear the security guard who will object. If you are careful and fast enough you can easily get maybe 50 shots off of a building interior by the time the security guard actually taps you on the shoulder. If you didn’t get all your shots, easy,
just go back another day.
If you want to put some fun in it, when the security guard finally gets your attention act like you don’t speak English. Just say something really loudly. Like, HI! I from Hungary! And then point your camera at him. I take you picture?
See that no trespassing sign? Ignore it or you can’t get shots like this. See how the door to the Crown Room at the top of the Fairmont Hotel is locked? Guess what? The service elevator still gets you up there and you get to sit on top of the world alone by yourself and get shots like this.
9. Money spent on gear is almost always worth it. Yes, one downside to photography as a lifestyle is that it is ****ing expensive. And the more it begins to live inside you the more you begin to physically NEED that new 14mm ultrawide lens or that Hasselblad that you know you can’t afford but that you know would just look fabulous on you, etc. etc.
Spend the money. You’re making making art. Art is more important than money.
10. Back up your photographs. Be anal about this. Hard drives will fail. It will devastate you when your photos die. They deserve to stay alive even years after you are gone. So back them up. Personally I use a drobo for all of my files which allows replication of data. I also keep copies of my full high res finished JPGs online on Zooomr. I use Zooomr, well because I’m CEO of the company and love the community, but, I also use Zooomr because it doesn’t restrict the size of the photos that you upload, so I can get high res copies of my finished JPGs online at a minimum in case my house burns down or something.
11. Learn how to shoot with the manual mode on your digital SLR. Even if you shoot in program mode or automatic a lot, learn how to make the adjustments when your camera’s automatic settings don’t see the shot as it is meant to be seen.
12. There is safety in numbers. Going to go shoot someplace especially dangerous? West Oakland at night, abandoned places in Richmond? Consider getting a group of people to go shoot together.
13. Learn to love the macro. A lot of people have told me that I’m lucky because San Francisco is my canvas. Actually though I can shoot for hours literally anyplace on earth. Just give me a macro lens and whatever space is 10 feet in any direction from where you are sitting right now becomes fertile new territory for photo exploration.
There are lots more tips and guidelines but 12 is probably enough for today. Keep up your amazing shooting and remember that the best photographs in the world have yet to be taken.
Other photowalking resources:
Trevor Carpenter’s photowalking.org page.
Photowalking tag on Zooomr ranked by awesomeness.
Angelo Rizutto on wikipedia.
Absolutely agree with All of your principles !
For example… I hang every day a new photo in my Flickr gallery and every day I visit / see hundreds of pictures of other Flickr photographers. I love it and always I learn something new.
Agree with All.
All the best,
Victor
…sorry dude. If it’s private property (versus a public place), then your “just take it anyway, it’s art” is just plain wrong.
I wonder if you’d feel the same way about a dump truck parked in your front yard, or somebody “borrowing” your gear to make some art of their own.
Otherwise, nice piece. Keep shooting, but keep it real.
True, it’s ****ing costly
Thanks to your photowalks, I started taking my camera to School almost everyday 3 months back, and am enjoying it!
Great post, Thomas. It was both informative and inspirational. I laughed, I cried.
Seriously, I aspire to most of the principles, and hope to do better with things like taking my camera with me, overcoming my own resistance to taking the shot, and shooting in RAW.
Thanks for writing this!
-Andy (aka Duck Brown on Zooomr)
I wonder if you’d feel the same way about a dump truck parked in your front yard, or somebody “borrowing” your gear to make some art of their own.
Anonymous, the analogies that you make involve a zero sum equation. For instance. If someone else “borrows” my gear to make their art, then I don’t have it. If someone parks a dumptruck in my front yard I’d assume that it would damage my yard.
Shooting in Starbucks or Whole Foods or Toys ‘R Us or at the Radiohead concernt, or wherever else you decide to shoot harms no one. And it makes the world a more beautiful place. There’s a big difference here.
Snapping a photo of a tomato at Whole Foods when they have an anti photography policy is not the same as stealing the tomato from Whole Foods.
I believe that you can photograph private property with doing zero real harm to it. In light of this I believe the decision to take the shot becomes morally superior.
As a photowalking disciple, I now have a name for my addiction after being introduced to your work, I really like the principles. I am not ballsy enough to shoot where I am not supposed to but I have begun to educate myself more about my rights. I attribute much of that knowledge to reading your blog and becoming a fan of your work. I also like the Karma with the favoriting. I need to do more of that. While there are some points I am not as sure to follow many of the them are dead on. I shoot every day and post every day as well. I make good use of the Internet and resources. I also participate in memes with photo themes each week. That way I can see many people doing the same sort of thing from all over the world. And buying each other’s stuff is a good thing too. Books and whatnot. I finally made a calendar from my favorite Photo-A-Day images so I hope that some of my buying karma comes back around to me.
Thanks for the nice post. I agree that taking my camera everywhere can be a pain. I try to do it where I can. Maybe it is just me but I feel like people look at me like I am carrying a machine gun. Anyway I still take it mostly because I know I will be mad if I miss a great shot. Here is one I got while at a clients office one night. They always wonder why I bring my camera, now I can show them. these shots
Good stuff. I like the reference to proportionality. I think that equally applies when considering if it is morally acceptable to take photos where somebody has determined you should not. Is it OK to step to the other side of a no trespassing sign and take a shot, sure I think it is (as you did to get a shot of the SF Gate bridge in an early Scoble Photowalking show). Is it OK to tramp all over a Starbucks shooting whatever takes your fancy regardless of the impact on the other customers in the store who are trying to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee or hold a conversation, no I don’t think it is. Doing so in the name of art doesn’t change this equation, the times when the ends justify the means are vanishingly small. There simply aren’t very many occasions when it is acceptable for an artist to adversely affect somebody else’s autonomy, however minor, simply to take a shot that will, in all likelihood, never be seen by anybody else.
I love taking pictures and I know I’ve missed great shots precisely because I haven’t wanted to inconvenience other people (including people who are just trying to implement a policy that wasn’t set by them) but I’m OK with that. For me, those shots weren’t worth the increase in total stress in the world that I would have caused. YMMV.
Photographic Insurgency, hurrah!
Nice piece. I like the way your passion for your art shine through.
I agree that the vast majority of no photography policy is misguided. The Miro Museum in Barcelona encourages photography, while the Picasso museum just a few miles away forbids it. Guess which one I will go back to. (By the way, I think the Picasso museum doesn’t allow it because all the good stuff is elsewhere. If people knew what crap was in there, nobody would go.)
However, people should be careful about ignoring posted No Trespassing areas. Laws vary from place to place, but generally if you ignore posted signs, you can be arrested and prosecuted.
Thomas:
You (and your photos) inspired me to be a more avid and active photographer. So for that, thanks and thanks for your evangelism.
I think your CEO should stand for Chief Evangelism Officer.
As a frequent trespassing photographer, I completely agree with Anonymous’ comment that it’s ethically wrong to trespass on private property for the sake of getting a photograph.
But don’t let that stop you from doing it
Andy Frazer
√
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Oh, wait. My camera (nor my Mac) is not a girl. My camera DEFINITELY has some phallic symbolism going on and is not a girl and would beat up your camera for saying so.
Heh.
I’ve trespassed (and been scared but exhilarated) and LOVED the shots I got.
I don’t typically do groups. I’m not a big group person. If it’s too dangerous, I find a different way of doing it.
I always shoot in RAW, always post-process (have to when you shoot in RAW) and always back up. It’s a part of the workflow for me.
I can’t imagine being parted from my camera. It goes everywhere I go and, like you, I enjoy being the person with the camera. I see the world in a different way because of it. And while I don’t typically see brighter colors (I see grayscales of monotones, duotones, tritones, and quadtones typically), I do see it bold and audacious…just the way it should be.
Thomas,
I just love the advice that one should ALWAYS have their camera with them. I’d take it to work, if they’d allow it in the jail.
I’ve been able to get some of the best images, in short notice.
My newer photoblog, CamarilloWalk, is based on this principle.
Way to go!
Just to add another view about shooting where you’re not supposed to — the main synagogue in Rome (Italy) is off-limits for photography after a terrorist incident there back in the 80s, and policemen with big machine guns are there to enforce the rule.
Rather than play a game of chicken with armed policemen, I took it as a challenge to find a better alternative that would allow me to photograph the building without risking arrest or worse. I went around the back and down a block or two, and got this shot, which to this day is a personal favorite.
Very good guidelines in your post Thomas. I enjoyed reading it, particularly the part about viewing work from other photographers.
I really enjoy the Lightroom podcasts. Even for those not interested in Lightroom there are wonderful interviews with many of the prominent photographers of out time. It is difficult to watch and not both enjoy and learn.
Great post, but I do take minor issue with this advice:
“But in the same way that Banksy paints *his* murals on *their* property, you are making the world a more beautiful place by making your photographs and what you are doing doesn’t hurt anyone.”
This doesn’t seem to be a sound analogy. Before Banksy became a respected artist, he was just another guy dabbing paint on other people’s property. Do you differentiate Banksy from other people with spray cans? In any case, how is that not hurting anyone? Whoever owns the property gets to pay for removing the paint, right?
I also generally object to your implication that ‘taking photos’ is equivalent to ‘making art’. Is the cabinet-maker the same as the sculptor? There are plenty of reasons to participate in a photowalk, take photos or trespass with a camera which have nothing to do with the intentions of making art.
“8. Your purpose in creating art is a higher purpose than their misguided reasons for disallowing you to create art — which in general
“
Um, no.
These people may or may not be misguided, but neither your art–nor mine–makes you God’s gift to the world.
I say this as an amateur photographer who has been interrogated on public streets a few times. I won’t necessarily wait for permission before I shoot, but I’ll try very hard not to be so arrogant to think that my art makes it OK to be a (seven-letter word meaning jerk) to anyone.
What a great article. I wish I was closer to the city – I’ll have to organize some east bay photowalks!
if someone puts up a boundary and you get to violate it because you claim moral superiority, what stops them from claiming the moral superiority to take and break your camera?
to get respect one must give it, and if you are willing to cross lines to justify your behavior, so will they.
Yep, you’re on it.I’ve shot for thirty years and the antipathy toward “street shooting” has become positively soviet era ridiculous. Whats up with this?
love to hear comments
heron237@gmail.com
I am an amateur photographer and also a security guard. I do have to disagree with you the taking photo’s thing. On one hand I love taking photos and I would hate to be stopped from taking a photo of something just because someone says I can’t, but I have worked at locations that were contractors for the Defense department and they required that no one could take pictures of building, because it was what was required by their clients if the company wanted to keep a contract with the client. It didn’t mean you couldn’t take a picture off property, but if you did it on property you would be asked to give up your card or film or at the very least delete the pictures of the building. So from my prespective I try to think about it in two lights 1. is it going to do any harm just to take a picture? 2. Could someone come after me legally for what I may post on the net? I feel most pictures you don’t have to worry about. I mean chances are if you take a picture of a person on a street they will never see it online amongst the millions of pictures. But if a company asks that I not take pictures of their building on their private property then I feel its wise to respect because its better to show respect towards a company then to feel like rule the world and can do whatever you want. Also, at the building I guarded if someone was to take a picture off of the property then it was ok because as security guards we had no say what happened there.
All very deep!
http://www.banksyunmasked.co.uk
Great post… very informative.
I want to start a Photowalk here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Do you have any advice?
Thanks
Paulo Jordao
http://www.paulopics.com
It’s good to have some news !thanks!
Really nice information, thanks for sharing！thanks!
Heavy article but nice.
I’ve learned to always — A*L*W*A*Y*S carry a camera with me when I leave the house. You are quite right — the camera expands the eyes.
Thanks to your photowalks!
Recently i have started taking my camera to School almost everyday 3 months back, and am enjoying it
Hello Thomas,
I’m an amateur photographer and have a camera I can use either auto or manual settings on plus a digital. I’m still experimenting with how to use the manual settings but I bring that camera and/or the other digital type with me every time I go out to an event or exploring.
My significant other says I take “weird” pictures but I take what I think is interesting…an empty crabshell on a beach, a close-up of violets coming up in my back yard, or the whitish/yellow stuff that forms over a stream, you know where the stream slows & it kind of looks like scum but I saw it on a hike last week & it made the coolest design “V” formations that were shaped by the movement of the water. It’s “my” art even if it is weird.
Anyway, I liked your article so much that I hung it on my wall at my desk and highlighted the part that says “When I am out walking my eyes are open. I see the world in color. In all it’s splendor and beauty. People are more real, more alive. The world is a far, far, more beautiful place.” I found this online funny enough after getting back from a walk/jog interval session today. It was a beautiful day and this phrase just hit the nail on the head, so to speak; even though I had no camera at that time. Just writing to say I enjoyed it.
Where can I find some good information on how to get better at the manual camera settings and how to use them?
Thanks
K