This genre consists mostly of failure, repetition, and times when you're on the train and think to yourself, did I leave the stove on?

If you're new here, my name is Faisal and I'm a photographer based out of Boston, Massachusetts.

And here on the channel, we talk all things street photography, Fujifilm, POVs, tutorials, all that sort of stuff.

So if you do end up finding this video helpful to you, do consider subscribing to the channel and turning on notifications.

This is part three of a series of videos where I go over some tips that have helped me with street photography over the years, and hopefully they can help you as well.

Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video.

If you're no stranger to street photography, you've probably already learned this the hard way, just like me.

And that's simply keeping your camera ready to take a photo.

One of the simplest ways to do this is by how you hold your camera.

And a lot of street photographers live by the practice of wrapping the strap around their wrist.

You can even go a step further with this and always hold your camera up by your face or raised up by your chest.

And basically the whole point of this is to just keep yourself in the most readied position to take a photo when something unexpected happens.

And you know, street photography, 90% of the photos you take are probably going to be an unexpected moment.

I tend to see a lot of street photographers hold their camera around their neck or by their side.

And you know, that's totally fine.

You should hold or wear your camera however you feel is most comfortable to you.

But in my own experience, I've found that that extra movement is added time between me raising the camera up and taking a photo.

And I've missed tons of photos because of that extra time it took to get my camera in a ready position to take a photo.

When you hold a camera this way, when you're doing street photography, you're going to be ready to take a photo whenever you see something happen because you're already in position to take a photo.

Secondly, you're not going to draw any unnecessary attention to yourself.

You know, this motion of bringing your camera up to your face, that can raise some attention towards you.

And if you're trying to photograph someone and you're trying to be sneaky about it and not disturb that moment, it could be the difference between, you know, not getting a photo and getting the photo.

So you probably won't be able to hold your camera up like this for hours.

Otherwise you wouldn't have any blood in your forearms anymore.

But you know, you can use your senses when you're out shooting.

When it feels like you're in a space or an environment where a potential photo is probably looming, then you can bring your camera up in this position and then simply aim, compose, and shoot.

Shooting street photography almost naturally calls you to photograph people.

And I know we've talked specifically about not photographing people in street photography on this channel, but for a lot of street photographers, people are the main subjects of their photos.

So if that's you, you typically go where the people are.

But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

When I'm in large crowds or very busy areas, protests, or maybe it's some street event, I tend to get overwhelmed in those situations and I sort of lose my observational eye.

My spidey senses.

The amount of people who've commented on my videos saying that I sound like Tobey Maguire.

Anyway, when there's a lot going on around me, I can't observe as well.

And so I end up missing some shots or I end up not seeing anything worth taking a photo of.

The second I start to feel like I'm just getting way too overwhelmed, I'm getting this sensory overload, and I'm not seeing as clearly as I was before, I'll just leave the area.

But I won't go too far.

I want to photograph the outskirts of that large crowd because a lot of the times, there's a lot of great photos that happen just outside of the crowd.

I'll end up shooting the outskirts of these very I'll see that photos start to reappear again and I can get some really awesome photos of people who also left that craziness.

You know, since you just went from this huge crowd of people to where the crowd starts to fall apart, potential photos start to reappear and stand out so much more to you.

And as you shoot these outskirts of these large crowds, you kind of refuel your creative eye or your observational eye and you can jump right back into the fire.

Or maybe you don't.

You just stay out where you were because you realize there's a lot of great photo potential right outside of the madness.

So in part two of my street photography tip series on this channel, I talked about how if you're very new to street photography and you're not comfortable about shooting alone, you should definitely shoot with another person, specifically another street photographer.

As much as I like to shoot with other people, I do most of my street photography alone and I find personally that it allows me to put all of my focus to the surroundings, the environment around me, and just be a better observer.

And when it comes to street photography, that's more than half the deal really.

When you shoot with another person, your mind will be in two places.

You have your friend, which you want to talk with, and then you have all the craziness of the street that's going on around you that you're trying to observe and focus on.

It's just not possible to be 100% focused on one thing or the other.

We need to give our full attention to what is going on around us in order to be able to take better photos.

When you shoot alone, you can do whatever you want.

You don't have to feel held back by your friend because maybe you see a great potential photo location and you want to wait there for 10-15 minutes.

You don't have to worry about asking your friend if they're cool with that.

This tip isn't to say that you should just throw all your friends out the window and never shoot with them again.

That would be a really bad idea.

It's really the relationships you meet through photography that it's really all about.

But I do think it's worth noting that I get my best photos personally when I'm shooting alone just because I am that much focused on observing my surroundings.

So before we get into the next tip, we have bonus tip number three, and that's to have some kind of portfolio ready to show anyone who might ask you what you're doing when you're taking photos on the street.

So that's where today's sponsor Squarespace comes in.

I've been using Squarespace for my own personal portfolio for almost five years now.

It's where I show my favorite recent work as well as run my own digital storefront.

However, it's also what I like to show people on the street who might ask what I'm doing.

Rather than show some Instagram page or photos I just recently took on the back of my camera, I've made this dedicated unlinked page on my site where I show my favorite photos as well as this QR code for the person to scan and bring up on their own phone quickly.

I basically bookmarked this on my phone because it's happened so many times.

It's just an easy way to show people that I'm really a photographer.

Creating a site on Once you find one that works for you, it's just a matter of curating all of your best work you want to show.

It's also worth noting you're not bound to any of these template designs either, so you can customize it and make your page more unique.

My Squarespace site also helps me make money through my digital store, and it's quite liberating for me because the process of selling all these presets is almost entirely automated.

So if you haven't already, I highly recommend you give it a try.

You can head over to squarespace.com to start your free trial and save 10% off your first purchase of a domain or website.

Thanks again to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video.

So I used to be a always shoot in manual type of person for all of my cameras.

I just really wanted to have full control over all the settings and make sure that the camera wasn't going to, you know, read an exposure incorrectly and thus leading to me missing a shot.

Camera processing power and the IQ of these cameras has gotten really good over recent years, and that means setting some parts of the camera to auto isn't really a bad thing to do.

First of all, shooting in auto isn't a bad thing for you to do in general, and you shouldn't be ashamed of it if you do.

I think it's always important to understand what the settings of your camera are doing and how to shoot in manual if you had to, but the whole point of shooting in auto is to lighten the workload on yourself so you can put more of your attention to the actual shooting process.

You don't want to be in a situation where you're trying to get your camera settings right, you're fiddling with your camera, and that's getting in the way of you taking photos.

So I've actually been shooting on P mode on my X-E4 right here, and it's done a really good job of getting great exposures very quickly for me.

When I shoot in auto on this camera, it really lets me put all my attention to what's happening around me, and I can just focus more on finding good compositions rather than worrying about if I had my exposure right.

The point is auto settings are supposed to work in your favor, and when you already have a good general understanding of the exposure triangle and how to shoot in manual mode, then don't be afraid of using auto exposure settings if it doesn't work for you.

This last tip is for any of you feeling doubt creep into your process.

I've lost track of how many times I've gone out to shoot and not take a single photo that I was happy about, and there's a good chance you've probably been in a similar situation, and when that happens, it sucks because you feel like you've just wasted a whole afternoon or however long you were out shooting.

You think your photos are terrible and that you're not going to get better at this, and the real scary one is when you think to yourself, you're never going to go out and do this again.

It's easier said than done, and it took me a long time to come to grips with this, but you need to accept those fears and those doubts and realize that it's part of the process of getting better at something that you care about.

If you're frustrated with your work and how you're progressing, it's a sign that you actually care about this thing.

I remember when I would come back from days of taking no photos and I'd be like, okay, what are we doing here?

Now back then in that moment, I was thinking that I was wasting my time, but in reality, I was putting in the work at getting better.

I was essentially practicing.

You don't get better at something without practicing, and that's what those days are, really.

So you know, maybe there was a moment where I see this beautiful moment, but I wasn't paying attention to it.

I had my camera turned off or not ready to go.

I ended up missing the shot because of that, but at the end of the day, I learned something there.

Or maybe I went out with too many intentions of making a really good YouTube video that I didn't end up taking any good photos, like literally right now.

You could look at these as moments of failure, but to me, I try to look at it as moments of growth and learning.

So I hope this video helps any of you looking to get better at street photography.

I know most of these things aren't, you know, things that you can just start to implement immediately and start taking better photos, but you can start to put them into practice every time you shoot.

These things have helped me become a better observer, become more accepting of when things don't go the way I want them to, and just be a better prepared street photographer.

So definitely leave a comment if you have any street photography tips of your own, and you know, you never know who's reading the comments, and you might be a huge help to someone else who's a beginner.

And if you have any other specific questions to me about my process, drop a question in the comments section, and don't be a stranger and subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet.

Okay guys, I hope you enjoyed this one.

I love you all.

I'll see you all in the next one.

See ya. ...18 to Abbot Kinney and Marina Del Rey and other nearby buses.

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