Street Photography Etiquette?

What is street photography etiquette? Is it practiced? When can it go over the line? Who decides that line? I aim to answer all these questions, not based on popular opinion, but on 20 years of street photography in Tokyo. Does that make me right? More correct than you? No. Etiquette is up to the individual.

My etiquette

My etiquette is simple: I don’t often take pictures of people in situations I would not want to be photographed. That is it. I came to understand this simple rule on a day at Roppongi Hills. It had been newly developed, and I wanted to check all the street photography angles. At the time, flip phones were quite popular. Mine rang, it was my wife. We had a terrible argument, raising our voices. The unmistakable sound of the loud click a mirror box makes inside a film camera began to fill my unoccupied ear. Click, click, click, followed in quick succession of a dozen or so clicks simultaneously. I dropped the phone to my side and turned to face the shooter to smile and nod, only to find an entire camera club clicking away. The smile turned to embarrassment. I returned the phone to my ear to hear my wife's frustrated voice. Still, they clicked and clicked and clicked. The camera club even began to fan out, working the scene that was me vulnerable, frustrated, and clearly overwhelmed.

I hung up on my wife, smiled and took a bow. They took more pictures. I had to walk away. I went to a cafe, called my wife back to apologize and decided I didn’t want to capture anyone like that. The first couple of moments of me on the phone were gold; even an image of my eye contact was good. After that, a smile and a nod of appreciation would have gone a long way. I decided that I wouldn’t put someone in that position for my photography. I don’t worry about any other best practices found in a beginner’s guide to street photography. I have the single rule from above.

Observe-Feel-Capture

Observe, feel, and capture is how I work. Focal length, shutter speed, aperture and colour or black-and-white rendering are all simply part of a gut-feeling-equation. As long as I am not taking from the subject and just recording it, everything else is a means to an artistic end. How do you know when you crossed the line? How would the people from my story have known they had gone too far with me? I saw a group of cameras, and they saw an individual. They had no idea how I felt. I am sure they were getting some great stuff in their minds. As each moment is its own, each subject has its tolerance. All I can do is empathize and not blur the line of my etiquette to take an image.

The logic I follow is that if I make an image, it is likely okay. However, if I take one, it is likely not okay. In the moment, it can be easy to click one too many times, and there is nothing wrong with that if you are making an image. The difficulty comes when the aim is to exploit the subject for personal gain.

Take the two pictures below. I captured both in succession; they are right on the line for me. That corner of Shibuya Crossing is fantastic because of the smoking area. The wall directs people in one direction and provides a compelling background (see image 3). I don’t typically photograph smokers per se, but the way the man held the cigarette was so interesting; he framed perfectly between the no graffiti sign and the graffiti. As soon as I took this image, he made eye contact and shot one more. I smiled, he nodded, and I moved on. I got a shot, and he gets to smoke in peace. One second more, and he would have lost his cool. That would have been stepping over my line. As it is, my toes are right on the line, even with the first image.

Who Decides?

I am happy about the experience and do not feel bad about either image. The individual street photographer will have to figure out how far they are willing to go to get the shot in their mind’s eye. It is not up to me to decide what any of them do; I just get to choose whether their image is compelling. Some are, and some are not. What is your etiquette? Have you defined it, or is it still in the works? The best advice is to decide on your own. Choose for your art, and you will most often find you have chosen yourself.

Shibuya Smoking Area 1

Shibuya Smoking Area 2

Shibuya Smoking Area 3