Between mid-September and beginning of October, Munich (Germany) welcomes around six million visitors – who usually drink as much beer measured in liters. For Bavarians – and others – the Oktoberfest is the occasion to dress up and wear their traditional costume called Tracht. Those traditional costumes are that present during the period that the typical German is usually represented in lederhosen. On a trip to the Bavarian capital mid-September, I was able to take a couple of photos – still from the hip and the 17 mm on my MFT camera. While in between I took some picture while having the camera just in front of the eye, the higher perspective – I am rather tall – is somehow boring to me. So, while I agree that shooting from the hip should probably rather be an exception than the rule, the lower angle somehow is often more interesting. However, I find it very difficult in those situations to work on composition.

However, here is the the picture of a man I saw just the day before the beginning of this year’s Oktoberfest. Interestingly, he looked way in the direction of my lens in this picture. While I somehow cut the lower parts of his legs, the look in my direction adds some strength to the photo.

And there is something else I noticed when focusing on street photography with people: I started to walk on the left sidewalk or side of the street in most countries. The reason: individuals tend to intuitively respect traffic rules when walking. This means that more people come towards me instead of walking in the same direction and permits to anticipate pictures of interesting subjects. This advice is certainly not revolutionary, but I thought, it might be interesting for someone starting street photography.