How to capture the “buzz” of a city

To capture the essence of a place you need to find out where all the action is happening. Usually this is in the heart of a city – although there are times when it shifts to the suburbs.

Different cities create different ‘vibes’. Think how different an old cobblestoned medieval city is from an ultramodern metropolis. Factors like the time of day, the local culture and your own state of mind can also influence your approach and whether you can respond to the ‘vibe’.

The location, backlighting and blurred moving people combine to capture its ‘buzz’ of activity in a city. (Source: iStock by Camera House.)

Keep your eyes open and brain engaged as you’re walking around a city and seek out elements and shapes that catch your eye. Pay attention to the details and textures of buildings, as well as how their shapes merge into or contrast with their surroundings.

Although colour can be a key element in most successful urban photos – it’s always worth evaluating its importance in each situation. Colour, light, contrast, and framing are key components of many pictures. Some situations demand bright, vibrant hues, while others work best when rendered in subdued tones.

Monochrome images can cut through better when you want to draw viewers’ attention to structural details. But there are times when it helps to have a touch of colour in an otherwise monochromatic scene, and other times when you need bright and vibrant hues to express the scene.

People from all round the world flock to the Japanese city of Sapporo in February for the spectacular and colourful night views provided during the annual Snow Festival, a major cultural event in the year.

One of the beauties of digital photography is that it allows you to record images in full colour and then edit them to appear as monochromes or in subdued, near pastel tones. This process can help you to determine the value of colour in each scene and develop your ability to use colours, tones and shapes more effectively in all the images you record.

Shooting tips

How to record the ‘buzz’ of a city you’re visiting:

1. Find out as much as possible about the city you plan to visit before setting out. Sort out where the main landmarks are located – and also places where people like to congregate, such as parks and shopping centres. Most cities have websites where these features are promoted.

The laneways around Melbourne Town Hall are well-known as having some of the best graffiti and street art in the city.

2. Learn to read the light – particularly when you want to photograph landmarks. Some places look best in the morning, while others make better subjects in the afternoon light. Many cities are at their best at night when the buildings are lit up from the interior and by neon lights outside their walls.

3. Use public transport to make your way to the area you plan to photograph. Then explore as much of it as possible on foot. Walking through a new city is by far the best way to get the feel of it. It also helps you identify places to return to for more photo opportunities.

4. Get up and out early in the day; find a public bench and watch the city wake up. Slow down; make no plans, just hang around and observe what’s going on. Be open to everything you see and experience and look for subjects that are worth photographing. Early morning light can make structures in cities glow and people passing will cast long and interesting shadows.

Interesting portraits of city structures can be obtained when you explore the lanes and alleys adjacent to the main thoroughfares. Traffic is lighter and the light can often be more evenly-distributed, particularly on overcast days. Note the small figures in the scene to provide a sense of scale.

5. Set up your camera’s exposure parameters beforehand. This means setting the ISO to Auto and limiting the available range to prevent the camera from using high ISO settings that are noise-affected. In Auto mode, the camera always selects the lowest practical ISO setting for the metered conditions – and you can usually also limit the shutter speed to keep it within the range where you know you can shoot without camera shake. A workable upper limit for daylight conditions is ISO 800, while you can normally go as far as ISO 6400 for dusk into evenings.

6. Expect the unexpected, and keep your camera ready. The perfect moment could be gone in a second so even if your camera settings are not quite perfect, take the shot anyway. In the end, the most important thing is to be ready to shoot something – even if it’s different from what you’d originally planned.

You can’t forecast when shots like this might arise – but you’ll capture them if your camera is ready to shoot.

7. Capturing movement is an important factor in urban photography, particularly when you want your images to convey the dynamism of the environment you’re in. One technique that can work well is to select a slow enough shutter speed to blur the motion of people passing by but which remains fast enough for you to hand-hold the camera steady enough to keep static elements like buildings nice and sharp. Effective in-camera (or in-lens) stabilisation is the key to success with this technique.

This simple composition, photographed in a subway, using a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/6 second to capture motion blurring, reflects the ‘buzz’ of the location. (Source: iStock by Camera House.)

8. People complete the picture. While some photographers approach urban photography in much the same way as they tackle shooting landscapes, urban photography can be much more than recording buildings and skylines. People in a picture can add a sense of scale as well as introducing variety to urban scenes.

People in a scene add variety to the shapes, colours and textures in the scene – and also a sense of scale.

9. Don’t let heavy equipment weigh you down. One camera with a wide-to-standard zoom lens plus a spare battery, memory cards and cleaning cloth should be all you need. Leave your tripod behind. Many cities prohibit the use of tripods – even small ones. If you need to steady your camera, find a ledge on which you can balance it – or lean up against a wall to keep you steady.

10. Avoid confrontations. If a potential subject indicates they don’t want you to take their photo, turn your camera away. Getting into an argument is a waste of your time – and you’ll end up in a bad mood that may spoil the subsequent shots you take.

Working invisibly

Login or Register to access the full article.

This article by Margaret Brown is an excerpt from City & Street Photography – click here to order print or ebook edition.

Pocket guide Partner: Camera House