How Street Photography Taught Me 3 Important Life Lessons
There’s so much going on in our world and it’s exciting, but frankly, there are times where we need that mental pause in our lives to mitigate the overwhelming factors of today’s culture. I was constantly exposed to the mass-produced and unauthentic content online on social media that’s focused on egotistic satisfaction and greedy money schemes.
A while back, a friend showed me some of his personal projects he was working on through a casual conversation, it was something unusual to me at the time, and later I would learn it was called street photography. It was so different from what I was used to seeing on social media. It wasn’t focused on having the most lavish lifestyle or seeing how “cool” you were by wasting tons of money or resources. It focused on the truth, the reality of life and doesn’t discriminate. The story of the image is what’s most important. I started learning more about the genre of street photography and one of its traits is incorporating unmediated and random occurrences. I took this as a hobby, seeing as it was fun for me. The more research and learning I did for this style of art, the more I learned about the values and practices and suddenly it started cascading into my mindset. It mentally refreshed me from all the garbage content I was previously exposed to.
Through my brief exposure to this genre, I want to share three life lessons that street photography has taught me and how it has improved my mental fortitude. I hope these lessons are insightful and possibly help open a new perspective of life that you might incorporate into your own lives; knowledge is power.
1. Authenticity
Street photography focuses on capturing life’s simple and random moments that occur in daily life. It isn’t staged or truly scripted, it’s the nature of variance that makes this genre exciting. You never know what to expect and this concept was intriguing for me. This meant the shots that you take are unexpected and will be different for any session. You can walk into any market, city, park, etc. and always find something new and exciting to shoot, and it’s refreshing. We have this subconscious appreciation for genuine and authenticness of a product or an experience. We become emotionally attached at a deeper level and motivated to continue.
This lesson of being your authentic self is important to understand. We’re so concerned with how we present ourselves online and in-person. If you’re at a more formal occasion such as a job interview or some professional event, etc. then you should act in a more professional and sophisticated manner compared to when you’re hanging out with friends. However, altering your persona versus knowing when to be mature are two different things.
For instance, I’m not the “life of the party” type of guy. It’s just not who I am, and that is fine. Altering my persona to please others is actually counter-intuitive. I appear as an actor; a fraud and people don’t form genuine connections with unauthentic people. People can sense BS; they know when something doesn’t seem right and over exaggerating yourself could hurt you more than it can help. Forcing yourself to be someone you’re not begins this spiral of trying to fulfill your personal flaws, which causes this sensation of lack of fulfillment in your life. No one is perfect, and the sooner you accept it, the more peace you have in your life. Street photography has taught me that there’s variance in what happens in our daily lives, and there’s variance in personalities of people too.
2. Appreciating the Simple Things in Life
When looking for subjects to shoot on the street, you see couples holding hands, friends chatting, people walking to work along with many events occur simultaneously. These events and actions are just second nature to people, there’s no need to think when you’re chatting with friends, or walking to work, it’s just life. However, as I’ve continued to observe and scope the area for a subject I’ve realized what if those things didn’t exist. What if we didn’t have friendships, relationships or jobs that we have today? Imagine your life without these people or opportunities you have in your life. How much of an impact would it make in your life just thinking about it now?
Because of this realization I’ve learned to appreciate the simple things in life because, in the end, these bonds are the most valuable to us and we shouldn’t take it for granted. The relationships we have with our friends, family, and others are priceless to us. There is no “perfect” relationship in life, there will be times where you experience ups and downs, however, this is variance and the nature of human interaction. Taking ownership of those difficult times shows maturity and mitigates the severity of future disagreements. I’ve learned to show more appreciation for these relationships I am honored to have. Showing simple signs of appreciation such as a “thank you,” or “hello” to the people we cherish, and others go a long way.
3. Simplicity
In street photography, there is usually minimal editing to post process your work. The quality of a shot is mostly based on the subject. While there are other factors that determine the shot such as the technical aspects, perspective, lighting, etc. Ultimately the subject is the focal point and the nature of street photography is it focuses on simplicity and allowing the subject to tell the story of a photo. In our own lives, we’re obsessed at times, control freaks who want to micro-manage things that we’re doing in our lives. There’s nothing wrong with having control, but when you start to overthink and overanalyze situations, it starts to ruin your confidence and shuts down your hierarchy of thinking which can affect your judgment.
This is something I’m working on as I tend to overanalyze situations. It’s a double-edged sword, sometimes it’s helpful other times it isn’t, but what’s important is knowing when to critically think versus allowing simplicity to influence your thoughts. Allowing information overload to cripple the way you think can affect decisions you make in life, whether it’s in academics, relationships, and business. As they say, trust your gut, don’t second guess yourself. And if you made the wrong decision, learn from the failure as this will be the next layer of knowledge in improving your judgment in future situations.
These lessons that I have learned have helped me develop a more mature mentality and provided me different insights on how to view the world. I hope these lesson that I’ve learned have been interesting and insightful for you and maybe in some cases can be applied in your own life. If you’re a street photographer, what other lessons have this genre taught you in life? Feel free to leave responses below for both street and non-street photographers, I’m always interested in learning and hearing different thoughts from others!
Photo source: https://www.instagram.com/pehyta.fotos/
