People say a lot of things... Often their statements aren't meant to be taken offensive but they are. A little while ago I was hanging with a few of my friends, mostly photographers, but one person out of the group was more of a fan than an enthusiast. She spoke about how cool my photographs were and really emphasized how important it was to photograph the people. She even went on to say that if she photographed she would likely choose my style.

I was humbled, it's always cool when people compliment your work, especially when the internet is typically hard to impress. I was obviously flattered, I explained how the streets are just interesting to me, I expressed my love for people and how different personalities really intrigue me.

She then went on to say, "let me show you this cool page". She was speaking about an Instagram page. I asked, "are the images similar to mine?" and her response was "not really, these are like real photographers".

I looked at my friends with a confused, yet curious look. The page she showed me was StreetLeaks. I was slightly offended, but not 100%. I'm practical so I understood where she was coming from. StreetLeaks page is quite good, it's a curation page where they find the best photos from users who use an extensive amount of clarity when editing. They often shoot between the 35 and 50mm range and the majority of their content consist of portraits.

From a fan standpoint, I could understand her infatuation with the page's content, but as a photographer, I felt the need to explain to her that my genre of photography was totally different. I'm not photographing the homeless or the less fortunate, at least not in every image, but I'm documenting Detroit.... With a wide angle lens, with contrast, not clarity and of candid moments, not portraits... Though I love portraits.

What did I get from this conversation? I'm not a real photographer, but then again... Who is?

There's No Right Way To Shoot Street Photography

One thing I try to express to people is that there is no correct way to shoot street photography. As you grow and start to post your work you'll notice that numerous amounts of people will try to give you feedback. It's just subjective criticism. At the end of the day, you capture what your heart wants too. Is that cliche? Yes, but it's so true. I shoot with a 28mm (FF equivalent), often at f/5.6-11, you can't compare my work to someone who shoots 40mm at f/2.8... However, people will.

I call what I do street photography, but I guess if I full had to define my genre it would be of the documentary style, not of one particular thing, but just people as a whole. How they move, how they react, how they interact. I'm documenting that, but then if we wanted to get technical everything is a documentation.