Tips for How to Get Better at Street Photography

Composing street photos can be tricky but these 5 tips will help

Even if you are a seasoned street photographer, you can always learn more about taking better photos! Learn how to get better at street photography by following these tips.

Roman Fox shows his top 5 unconventional tips for creating beautiful street photos.

Get better at street photography and photo composition with these tips!

The usual rules for compositions – or how the different visual elements are put together in the photo – are not any of the tips found here. 

Rules like rule of thirds, framing, and leading lines. You can read about those rules in this essential photography terms post.

How to get better at street photography Tip #1 – Be aware of the edges

Make sure you look around the edge of the frame of the photo, and eliminate any random object.

Objects around the edges might distract from the photo simply by having something in the composition that is poking in and shouldn’t be there.

Clean edges are the best for overall composition.

Edges can be cleaned up later in editing but if you get it right when you take the photo it will make things easier for you. 

You can move positions when taking the photo, or when editing you can crop the image or remove the object from the edge with your editing software.

Get better at street photography Tip #2 – Try other Perspectives

Change how you are looking at the scene. Sometimes the photo doesn’t reflect how your eyes are looking at a scene. So try to get a different angle or direction when taking the photo.

One way to test this is to close one of your eyes, and if the setting still looks good then it will probably be a good photo. 

Or you can take a test shot and see if the composition makes for a good photo. Readjust as needed if the composition isn’t quite right

Another way to get good perspectives is to not use the viewfinder (little window on the camera for your eye to look through for taking photos) and just look at the screen of the camera when taking the photo.

Get better at street photography Tip #3 – Make sure you Balance the elements in the picture

Choose what the subject is in the scene you’re looking at and what other elements or spaces take up other parts of the scene. 

Is there something pulling your eyes to the sides or the top or bottom more? There might be something taking more weight – or attention – in the photo.

The balance between highlights and shadows, and positive and negative space are important to keep in mind. 

Positive space is what the subject takes up in the photo, and negative space is the empty space around the subject. 

Like in this photo below, the left shadow is large but the right side has the person which balances the sides and creates a good looking composition:

Get better at street photography Tip #4 – Have your subject in the Bottom Right

Sometimes this particular tip doesn’t work or need to be followed, but usually when the subject is in the bottom right of the photo it makes for a better composition. 

Try to have the subject in the bottom right and facing into the middle of the photo for the best looking photo.

Get better at street photography Tip #5 – Visit the same location over and over

The most practical tip, keep going back to places that you take photos before and take the same composition. 

The way you look at scenes now will change over the months or years which will change how you compose and take photos. The same location will help you see things differently as you get better as a photographer.

You can take amazing street photography with these tips 

Learning how to better compose your photos while out on the streets will help you improve as a photographer!

And if you want to learn how to improve your photography skills, check out this comprehensive guide!

Which of these tips will you use on your next street photography photoshoot?

Comment below!