Street Photography: Masters and Inspiration

Ted Forbes profiles Josef Koudelka, prompted by a Getty retrospective. He traces Koudelka's switch from aeronautical engineering to photography at thirty, the seven days photographing the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague, published anonymously as PP and awarded the Robert Capa Gold Medal, and the theatre and Gypsies work.

Henri Cartier-Bresson speaks in an archive interview about photography as an immediate, uncorrectable sketch drawn by intuition. He recalls Robert Capa warning him off the surrealist label, dismisses mere documentation, describes the geometry and millimetre-precise relations of shapes that give him pleasure, and insists on acting quickly like an animal.

Derek Fahsbender, a New York street and portrait photographer with fashion roots, delivers a B&H class on seeing the city differently. He covers preparation, approach and camera settings, then discusses favourite images from across New York: candid moments, street portraits, reading light and how tight crops shift attention to faces.

Dotan Saguy, in a Leica-sponsored B&H talk, recounts the year after leaving technology to shoot full-time without needing it to pay. He traces his path from hobbyist through photojournalism, documentary and travel work to publication, sharing lessons and the story of Louis, a former dancer in crumbling Havana.

A five-minute montage from Stefano Maraschio's Street Level Photography channel presenting its top selection of street photographs for October 2017. The images play as a slideshow set to a motivational piano track, with no spoken commentary, offering a curated monthly round-up of contemporary street photography to study at leisure.

Alan Schaller reflects on street photography in a SmugMug film, describing cities as an overwhelming conveyor belt of subjects he tames by limiting himself to one focal length or location. A former film composer, he explains how narrative drives his work and how he conveys mood through environment, not faces.

Alan Schaller offers seven black and white street tips: shoot mono deliberately for a month, seek texture, tonality, contrast and light over colour, accept the available light, use geometry and reflections, cover the full tonal range per Ansel Adams' zone system, shoot from unusual heights, and treat editing as varnish.

Brian Lloyd Duckett answers viewers' questions: he shoots with project themes rather than free-for-all sessions, stays calm and friendly when someone objects to being photographed, keeps editing to darkroom-style adjustments without HDR or filters, won't photograph homeless or distressed people, and suggests sharper focus for anyone hitting a wall.

Ted Forbes counts down ten street photographers who influence him, from Charles Nègre's 1852 chimney sweeps, made on emulsion of roughly ISO 6, and Henri Cartier-Bresson to the New York school of the 1950s and 60s, including Ted Croner's blurred night scenes and Louis Faurer, alongside Saul Leiter.

Nick Turpin, thirty years a London photographer, defines street photography as candid, unstaged observation anywhere the public gather. He calls the camera a space-time editing tool, addresses nervousness about photographing strangers, shows projects On the Night Bus and Autos, and collects sets of three pictures from Piccadilly Circus.