How To Shoot Street Events

Events like parades, festivals and even street protests happen on our local streets all the time. For street photographers they offer opportunities for really creative images.

For new photographers these sort of events can be quite intimidating but with a little preparation you shouldn’t be concerned if you take care to be non-threatening and understand the dynamics of what’s going on.

For example this is an image from a very loud and very aggressive protest in Oakville last Saturday. The protesters who were advocating for the Palestinian cause had blocked Lakeshore Road.

I decided to wade into the protest and shoot at close range the leaders and the protesters.

As I made my way slowly (always move slowly and with purpose) around the protest I came upon an older woman in a very heated argument with one of the protesters (who had attempted to intimidate me with his cellphone camera). I could tell immediately this was not a good situation.

Arguing with a zealot, especially a zealot who is angry and aggressive, is a very bad idea regardless of your political views and regardless of whether you’re a bystander or a photographer.

Voices were being raised and fingers were being pointed. And as you can see by my image there was another person behind the woman who was filming the exchange with a cellphone. This was not a safe situation.

Based on my years of experience at street events and especially street protests I stepped in between the two and facing the lady told her she should leave immediately. Fortunately she realized the danger she was in and immediately walked away.

What can happen in a street protest is situations can get out of hand very quickly and the greatest danger of injury isn’t necessarily from the person in front of you but a secondary person often to the side or behind you who strikes out or pushes you as tempers flare.

I have seen this happen at other protests and it is not worth the potential injury to persist. Kenny Rogers said it best when he sang you got to know when to fold them. You got to know when to walk away and know when to run.

If you are shooting a street protest and you find yourself being followed or intimidated do what I did.

I walked slowly again over to three of the biggest Halton Regional Police officers I’ve ever seen (I mean these guys towered over me and all of them looked very stern..maybe even mean!) and I stood beside them and felt as safe as safe could be.

Shooting images at a street protest regardless of your personal beliefs and feelings isn’t the time or place to offer them up to strangers. If you can’t keep your mouth shut and your feelings to yourself then don’t get involved.

While shooting at a street protest it can be a good idea to walk up to an organizer and start a conversation and shoot a couple of throw-away general images. If nobody protests you’re likely good to go on shooting the protest and you may even get folks cooperating and helping you move around.

If things get totally out of hand do what famous journalist and newsman Dan Rather always said he did and that was find the high ground. In other words get out of the fray and go find some place to stand where you can get an overview of what’s going on.

BTW my little story here has a happy ending.

I was downtown shooting another event when I came across the protest and after a few minutes of shooting I went back to my original event. About 15 minutes later the young man in the photo who was holding the cellphone stopped me on the street to apologize for the behaviour of the aggressive protester. Seems the protest organizers were not happy that someone at their protest was acting so aggressively and with such anger towards bystanders.

And while I made it clear to the young man that he and I did not agree on the issue I told him that I had no issue with him or with the protest (which is the right of anyone under Canadian law) and we parted by shaking hands.

Tim Jamieson, a street photographer has a very good “how-to” YouTube video called The Best Way To Photograph Events On The Street which I highly recommend.

But over my almost 60 years as a photojournalist and even now in my retirement I find street photography and especially street photography that is about a special event taking place in a public area almost irresistible.

Recently as part of a photo walk with the Toronto Photo Walks group we chanced upon the Caribbean Festival grand parade preparations which we all took advantage of to produce some fun colourful images.

One of the advantages of shooting a street event is generally you can get a lot closer to your subjects using wider angle lenses for a more intimate image than generally available shooting with a telephoto lens.

By shooting in close you get to interact with your subjects and talk to them and generally just have a better experience yourself as a photographer.

BTW one trick I learned a long time ago is have simple business cards made up with your name or a logo and your web gallery address and maybe your email address and hand them out to subjects who request an image from you. It also makes you look more professional as well and can make asking for permission to shoot an image (I shoot candids with no permission and posed shots with permission about 50/50 of the time.) much easier.

Another recommendation I’d offer is approach your subjects slowly and put a really big smile on your face and start the conversation with a compliment. Tell your subjects what attracted you to them and encourage them to agree to a few minutes of time to get an image. I am almost never turned down.