When it comes to street photography, I feel one of the greatest joys is that it allows you to experience life in a novel and different way. Arbus shares some of her thoughts:
“My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been. For me there’s spending about just going into someone else’s house. When it comes time to go, if I have to take a bus to somewhere or if I have to grade a cab uptown, it’s like I’ve got a blind date. It’s always seemed something like that to me. And sometimes I have a sinking feeling of, Oh God it’s time and I really don’t want to go. And then, once I’m on my way, something terrific takes over about the sort of queasiness of it and how there’s absolutely no method for control.
I feel that one of the greatest traits that a street photographer has is his or her curiosity. Street photography gives us the wonderful opportunity to have the excuse to go to places we generally don’t go — in order to look for interesting photographs and experiences.
Takeaway point: Explore and take the path off the beaten road. If you always shoot street photography in the same place, venture off elsewhere and go down hidden paths that you haven’t been down before. Realize that there is little you can control in terms of what subjects appear, how your background will look at a given time, and how the weather will be for your shots. Simply let the shots come to you, and embrace them.