Composition makes up a big part in photography – and so it does in street photography. While I am at first always drawn to interesting faces, I started to concentrate a little bit more on composition. The problem is that composition is more complex when you (still) shoot from the hip and rarely stop walking when taking a picture. Conquering my fear might still be an issue at this stage.

Instead of just looking for somewhat interesting individuals, I tried to focus more on situations that will make a picture work. As opposed to earlier sessions alone, I also walked with my family in the streets. And actually, this helps a bit as you seem more harmless when you walk around with your baby daughter – the camera might in that situation only serve to capture family moments. At the same time, you get more easily distracted from focusing on your photo shooting.

During the walk to our local market, we came across two men discussing. At first, the situation did not have anything extremely special or interesting, but the way, the men were turned to each other as well as the general set-up of the scene had some potential – I just was not able to explain it before taking the photo. While editing the day’s photos in the evening, the picture actually evolved when I converted it to black and white: even in roughly the same age, the situation of the two men was full of visual opposites. The man ont the left has white hair, whereas the men on the right has some darker hair. Further, the man on the left was dressed in dark clothes, whereas the man on the right was dressed in light colors. At the end, I really like the picture for the number of opposites between the two men. And by the way, I seem to be somewhat drawn to elderly people – but I will get to that point a bit later. Here is the final photo (I definitely like the square format for people-centred photos).