Recently, I really think that street photography is why I want to live. Street photography has changed my life in a way that I didn’t expect it would. I suddenly have a plan in my life. I have an activity where I can use my creativity. I get challenged every day. I don’t get bored because it’s always different. Street photography is characterized by unique way of shooting.
For some people, Street Photography is just a hobby like doing sports or any other leisure activity. Maybe you can do it as a hobby, if you like, but for some people, including me, it is a way of life. Street Photography is the reality and you don’t want to change that. You hold up your camera like a mirror to society. For me street photography became an integral part of life, unnatural attraction, way of recreation and leisure. The desire to shoot everything that surrounds us.
For me, I shoot street photography because I am genuinely interested in human beings and society. Like the rest of us, I spend far too much time in front of a screen and trapped inside my apartment. Street photography gives me the opportunity to get out of my damn apartment, to roam the streets, go on thrilling adventures, explore unknown neighborhoods, and work hard to make a powerful and emotional image. Street photography for me isn’t just photography. It is a way of life. Street photography helps me appreciate the beauty in the mundane and ordinary. Street photography helps me express my feelings of the world through my photographs. Street photography makes me feel more fully alive. I also love the thrill and serendipity of street photography. Because you cannot control all the variables when you’re out shooting on the streets. When we’re shooting on the streets– we’re never 100% sure how the photographs are going to turn out. Street photography has also changed how I see reality. Before street photography, I wouldn’t appreciate the small things of everyday life. I would just live my life in tunnel vision, totally oblivious to the world around me. But now, street photography has helped me slow down. I appreciate the small joys of everyday life.
For me the interest in humanity was the primary reason why I started to shoot strangers in the streets. I always wanted to see and document everything and everybody. I wanted to be close, the closer the better. This brought me to a genre of street photography I call “Candid Street Portraiture”. It’s a way of taking someone’s portrait from a very close distance without asking for permission. This kind of photography may be controversial, but it’s part of my passion taking photos in the streets. I have to live with critics about my art every day. Since I love this so much, I don’t really care that there are some people shouting at you, writing negative comments and try to take you down. It was my choice to shoot like that and keep doing it, no matter what happens or what people say about it.
It is just good walking walking down the streets to see some interesting characters. They might have an interesting hat, mustache, sunglasses, mood, or style. Something compels you to take a photograph of them. It is inexplicable. It is something that is deep in your bones. You don’t know why, but you must photograph that person.
Press releases, websites, exhibitions, giving away photos for free etc. These are all good ways to up your coverage. I also have a day job and do not depend on photography for any kind of income. This website and my blog are created not on income but on the desire to leave some sort of mark although the least in street photography genre and of course for fans and followers. There is a great desire for me to show the mundane street views through my lens.
We hate being judged. We want everyone to like us, to love us, and to think that we are “normal” human beings. Sticking out can be scary, and when it comes to shooting street portraits, it is a very strange thing to do. Being a street photographer you are cut from a different cloth. You are more intensely attuned to the emotions, feelings, thoughts, and emotions of others. You are genuinely trying to do a good and positive thing through your photography— to connect with strangers and other human beings that you feel some sort of connection with.
By implementing this my project really thought that it would require so much time and diligence. Therefore, most sincerely for their support and patience, I thank my wife Ievute.