Layering in Street Photography
Starting with a Workshop
I’ve been trying to improve composition lately in my street photography by trying to take more interesting shots and to avoid the typical ‘light and shadows’ scene or just taking pictures of random peoples faces, although having said that I’ve always tried to create a bit of curiosity whereby the person can’t be easily identified.
This all started when I attended a workshop in Cambridge by Matt Hall, otherwise known as @thethirteenthsecond. I’ve admired Matt’s work for a long time so when an opportunity came up to attend one of his workshops I jumped at the chance. He uses layering in his street photography to great effect, so instead of just taking a shot of a subject he will introduce foreground and background elements to isolate the subject. Below are a couple of my favourite shots taken by Matt:
Out of My Comfort Zone
The workshop started by meeting Matt and a group of other street photographers outside Cambridge Train Station on a very hot and sunny Friday in June, I brought my Fujifilm X-T3 camera with me along with my trusty 35mm f1.4 lens and I could see the majority of the group also sporting Fujifilm gear (Matt uses an X-Pro3 with a 56mm f1.2 lens as his standard setup). After we introduced ourselves to each other Matt set us a challenge of standing outside of the station and just taking candid shots of people coming out of the exit, I’ve taken plenty of candid shots in the past, but never when there are a group of us all pointing cameras at the next person walking towards us like paparazzi. As you can imagine this felt slightly uncomfortable so I isolated myself by walking away from the station and taking shots near the taxi rank (one taxi driver jokingly asked if I was Inland Revenue?!). This exercise only lasted for five minutes or so after which I was ready to move on, I also knew this wasn’t Matt’s style of street photography so I couldn’t wait to get into the meat and bones of the workshop.
Finding My Flow
Next we moved away from the station and up some steps to a bicycle storage area, basically a multi story car park for bikes. The bicycle park had a mesh style wall looking out onto the train station platforms with the sun light beaming through the inch sized holes (we couldn’t have asked for better weather). I wouldn’t have even thought about taking shots here if I was on my own, but I managed to take one of my favourite shots of the day in this location. This is when Matt introduced the concept of layering in street photography and how adding foreground objects can make the image more interesting. In this case, the mesh wall was acting as the foreground layer. After a bit of moving around and getting a feel for what kind of shots I should be taking, I poked my camera lens through the mesh wall and took.a few images, the first one (below left) was taken using f4.0, but I felt that the mesh was too distracting, so I opened up the lens to f2.0 to blur the holes which resulted in the shot below right which I was happier with (although I preferred the way the lady is posing in the first image, hand on hip as if to say ‘where’s my train!?’). In addition to the foreground layer there is an additional layer of the first train on the platform, then the subject then the staircase and another train in the background.
Into the City Centre
We then headed towards the centre of Cambridge by which time the heat was searing, late twenties and still not a cloud in the sky. We stopped at a bus shelter which is one of Matts favourite places where he uses markings from the glass such as graffiti or logos to add a foreground point of interest and then try and have a subject in the back ground. I was unable to make anything interesting work here, but certainly kept it in my mind as a technique for the future.
We took a break for some lunch so I grabbed a quick Wasabi and then found a Pret to get an Oat Latte (standard). After wondering around for ten minutes or so we all met back in the middle of the food market and then headed through to another part of Cambridge around where the Museum of Zoology is, I’d only been to this city once before so I was just blindly following the rest of the group. It was a pleasant change from being in London and knowing every street like the back of my hand!
The offices behind the Museum consisted of a lot of glass and staircases as well as digital screens making for some interesting compositions. Matt was keen to introduce the idea of using reflections in addition to layering in street photography. One of my favourite images from the session is below left where I pointed the camera at one of the screens which was showing a tree like pattern at the time and I managed to time it just right with the person walking by to my right. The addition of the bright sunlight created a nice layering effect. I used aperture f11 and shutter speed 1/125 for this shot. The shot below right wasn’t from a reflection, but I liked the composition and the way the railings cut across the scene creating some layering.
Kings College Area
The last location of the workshop was close to Kings College Cambridge around Bene’t Street. Straight away I noticed my favourite drinking haunt Brewdog, unfortunately we weren’t here to get on it, instead I noticed Matt taking some shots through the window of the bar on the corner so I joined him and managed to get one that I liked (below left). I used f1.4 for this shot and due to the multiple layers of glass I decided to use manual focus to avoid getting a blurred subject. Across the road was a fantastic cafe serving pizza, which looked delicious through the window (annoyingly we’d just had lunch). I went for the composition below right and purposely left out the face of the pizza man. I think the reflection of the yellow lines on the road adds a nice touch. I also used f1.4 aperture for this shot.
After spending a bit more time here, we worked our way back towards the station via a nice little coffee shop where we had a de-brief of the days events. I swapped contact details with the rest of the group so we could check each others photos out later. All in all it was a fantastic day and I highly recommend Matts workshop to anyone who’s interested in improving their composition, especially laying in street photography. Check out his website for details at www.the13thsecond.co.uk
Where it all began
One of the greatest photographers at creating great compositions with layering and colour was of course Saul Leiter. Born in Pittsburgh in 1923, he moved to New York City at the age of 23 and became an artist, but it wasn’t until the 50’s that he began photographing his now home City. One of his most famous pieces of work is ‘Taxi’ from 1957 (below left). He also used another technique called sub-framing which is demonstrated below right in ‘Red Umbrella’ from 1955, where he uses the window frame of the vehicle to frame the subject. The splashes of red was another key feature in many of Leiters images, but he never over did it, in fact many of his photographs had an almost painted look which was partly down to the use of expired Kodachrome film. He tended to use telephoto lenses which gave his images a compressed look.
Learning Going Forward
After getting back from the Cambridge workshop I was keen to put some of these new techniques into practice. At the next available opportunity I headed into London around my usual haunts. I fancied seeking out a quieter area so I jumped on the tube to Bank and had a wander around the City. I stumbled upon the image below left by walking down Basinghall Street, then into the alleyway called Mason’s Avenue where this shot was taken from, pointing through a shop window towards Basinghall Street. I focused on the bottle using manual with the 35mm lens at f1.4, as it was a pretty bright day the shutter speed automatically set itself to 1/2000. I wanted a blurred out subject to walk past to make them unrecognisable and I was waiting for the classic man in the hat to walk past, but as there was hardly a soul around I had to make do with this fella. I didn’t notice at the time, but I like the touch of colour provided by the two bin bags at the bottom of the image.
The image below centre was my attempt at replicating a similar shot to the one of Matt’s at the top of the page with graffiti on a pain of glass in the foreground. Like the previous image there was a lack of subject walking past in this area which was along Cheapside not far from St Paul’s. I used manual focus for this shot to try and nail the sharpness of the paint, although don’t think I quite got it even though the aperture was closed to f5.6.
The other recent image which I’m happy with (below right) was taken through a glass window of The Founders pub next to Blackfriars Train station by the Thames. This was during an early morning photo walk where the sun was at its best. I like the way the light hits the table and the one chair with nobody sitting on it, I also used manual focus here, really homing in on the front of the table where the light is hitting. I thought the flowers added a bit extra to the image. Again I was waiting a while for a decent subject to walk past in the background, probably the only thing that slightly lets it down.
During another photo walk around the Westend, I spotted one of the hop on, hop off buses. I remember how it was empty except for the driver and the conductor at the rear, I tried to layer the images with the vehicle in the foreground then use the bus windows as a sub-frame. Both of these images were shot with my newly acquired Fujifilm 56mm 1.2 lens with aperture set at f1.4. It was total coincidence that the 2 tone colours almost match Saul Leiter’s ‘Taxi’ image above. The first one is probably my favourite due to the conductor subject remaining anonymous with his face not shown.
So moving forward I plan to put this style of street photography into practice as much as I can. One of the key takeaways from Matt was, when you think you have a good composition, try to add as many elements as you can to make it even more interesting, only when you can’t add anything else then take the shot. Maybe not always possible when you have a small time window, but I’ll certainly be trying!