Second project theme: Street photography

I've been musing over what to focus on for my second project theme for some time now...

This weekend I have finally decided on street photography, party because I've spent a prolonged amount of time gazing out of the window at the soggy streets of Manchester, watching people battle the wind and rain and thanking my lucky stars I didn't have to contend with it myself...

Time to get my hands dirty!

I want to go for something quite different to my portraiture theme but am after another challenge; another area I haven't had much experience with for whatever reason... in this case, the reason being I am too timid with my camera in public - I always feel like I've no right to point it at strangers in the street and also worry that someone will come and lock me away for acting suspiciously (!)

I'm definitely going to have to look into the boundaries of what's OK and what's definitely not OK - I took some photographs on the Moscow underground once and got a stern telling off from an oversized guard with an equally oversized gun.

So, in search of some inspiration I did a bit of research into street photography/ers... here are my 'best bits'...

Danny Santos tends to focus on a single subject in his street photography, featuring them head on and throwing the background street scene out of focus - visit his Flickr stream to see some other super examples in the same style. He even has an album entitled 'women being beautiful'; we like this man... we like him a lot :)

'Where the girls are' by Angela Vicedomini - I really like the composition of this shot and the way the photographer has captured the spirit of friendship between the group on the bench. They look like they're up to mischief! This has given me some ideas around groups of friends at bus stops etc... watch this space...

Olivier Raffy took this from the city walls in Dubrovnik; so clever. I've seen shadows manipulated like this before - Steinmetz's famous camels are just brilliant. Really love this effect.

My absolute favourite! An incredible shot by Fulvia Menghi. Priceless timing.

So there you have it. I'm not sure I'll manage to match the calibre of these photographs but they have certainly provided some fantastic inspiration - can't wait to get started!