Street photography is the purest, most spontaneous way to create art with a camera. No studios, no props, no poses; all you need is the right equipment and a street with people on it. In this original series for Engadget, we'll follow three seasoned street fighters and try to glean some practical wisdom about what engages their eyes, brains and fingers in the moments before they shoot.
We learned about manual exposure in the last installment. Now we're going all in with a look at manual focusing. Our guide is Matt Stuart, a London-based photographer who's made his name with funny and quirky shots of humanity going about its business; shots that often materialize and then disappear so quickly that even the fastest autofocus system would fail to keep up. Since Stuart's style often involves stepping right up to people, almost to the point of invading their personal space, we'll also try to figure out how he manages to avoid confrontation.
The photographer
"I don't appreciate you abusing my human rights," said the woman, stepping in front of my lens.
"I wasn't filming you," I replied, pointing my video camera down at the ground. "I was filming him."
I nodded toward Stuart, who stood a few meters away from me, oblivious to the fact that I was caught up in a debate with an angry citizen. Leaving me to fend for myself, he continued to snatch unauthorized portraits of passersby, often just a few feet from their faces, while they barely seemed to notice, much less complain about it.
James Potter