I have spent more than six decades making photographs, and the street still gives me reasons to look again. A glance, a gesture or an ordinary arrangement can hold more interest than something deliberately spectacular. Experience helps me recognise possibilities, but it does not remove uncertainty. There is always another way to see the scene.
The Candid Lens brings together practical lessons about observation, equipment, exposure, composition and the responsibilities of photographing people. This revised website edition gives those subjects a connected path, with assignments that can be tried close to home. It is written for someone beginning street photography and for a photographer who wants to examine familiar habits.
My emphasis is on black-and-white work, but many of the decisions apply equally to colour. I prefer to preserve the people, objects and relationships recorded by the camera, and to use editing in service of the photograph. Where an experiment creates a composite or another interpretation, I believe its description should make that clear.
Read in order if the foundations are new to you. Otherwise choose a question you are working on and follow the related chapters. You do not need to master every control before making pictures, and you do not need to buy equipment before discovering what your present camera can do.
Take the exercises as invitations. Keep your own judgement, respect the people and places you photograph, and let your results tell you what deserves another attempt. The purpose is to become more attentive and more deliberate while retaining the pleasure that made you pick up a camera.
Peter Pickering