How To Shoot From The Hip For Street Photography

Don't forget to watch my video on Zone Focusing which can be combined with shooting from the hip to get great results! https://youtu.be/kCpAdT-Zi60?si=FBRWtlPV8FWInd9Y

I agree with your statement. It is just another technique in a photographer’s tool kit.

I agree with you. Shooting from the hip is not cheating. It's actually more difficult in some respects, because you can't frame the photo easily, like you can when looking through a viewfinder. Nor can you be certain of the image you just captured. Is it in frame and is if focused and sharp ? You don't really know until you review it. What it does do, is to allow one to capture amazing natural shots that could otherwise be missed and often from a very interesting perspective. It's a totally different experience in photography for a number of reasons. Anyway, I'm enjoying your channel and as a new subscriber from Australia, I am looking forward to watching all of your videos. Thank you.

Of course it is valid - you are spot on. It is another tool in the photographers tool box for capturing the moment. I have been practising this with my Q2 and found it useful for that spare of the moment capture. Many memorial moments have been captured by a photographer on the move, without having the opportunity to use the view finder.

HI! Thank you for your channel. About your last question, I use to shoot from the hip, too. About if this is cheating, or about any ethical debate, I do think that this is not something one can set with a couple of sentences. Ethics involve much more than anything one is doing. It involves a large variety of situations, of intentions and purposes, and encompasses many cultural concepts that, by definition, depend on the cultures of different countries, beliefs, education and religions. So when someone tells me about ethics of street photography, I invited him (politely) to a couple of hours well documented debate, or to silence.

Shooting from the hip is the holly grail of street photography. It is the most demanding, it requires complete immersion into the session, it is physical, particularly when shooting in crowded areas like markets. It requires training the brain to see the picture ahead, whilst clicking the one you saw 30 seconds ago at the same time suffle around people to become invisible to the subject thats commi, plan in your head where the camera should be positioned just seconds before everything you may have preconceived, comes together and then have the complete confidence in your muscle memory to press the shutter. A 3 hour shooting walk would need 15min or so of warm where most shots are likely to be rubbish until you get into a tunnel vision and eye / arm body coordination begin to work together. Above all else, you need to know the shutter lag characteristics of your camera and have trained your mind to anticipate. If you don't believe me use two different cameras with identical lenses one you are familiar with and one you are not, then compare the 'just missed results'. Shooting from the hip is immersive photography. Whether you choose zone focusing or use 24mm lens at say f8 f11 with eye face recognition tech is a personal choice. I get pretty perfect results with an Olympus Pen F with a12mm lens less so with the Fuji XT3 with 10-24 Sigma the shutter lag is the issue I am more in tune with the Olympus which I have had since it was launched ... any way what matters is the results not the how any technique that yield a good image is valid. The arguments about purity is for armchair photographers. Thank you for the video and the one about zoning... had forgotten how I use to use it back in the days of my Nikon FM with a 35mm Nikkor

Many years ago I used the Minox 35 ML as a candid street photography camera, the Minox 35 ML is one of the most compact analog cameras you can get (will be nice as digital !). I had the Minox 35 ML in an upper small shirt pocket, so I could very fast take it out, open the lid and snap a photo using just one hand ! The camera was set to auto exposure and the distance to about 3 to 4 meters distance. Now I only use digital mirrorless Cameras, but I do sometimes use the same kind of candid shooting, but I use manual setting for aperture, shutter speed and ISO which I check from time to time if the lightning changes.

Interesting.Thank you.

The best is actually catching people when they are not posing! I don’t like posed street photography.

I think it's mostly about recognising that you have a good image after it's been taken. Often when composing using the viewfinder I find myself looking at the image on the computer screen later, scratching my head wondering what on earth I was thinking at the time and sometimes the images I dismiss at first turn out to be the keepers. You hit the shutter button because you think you've seen something regardless of what height it's taken from. I envy those who think it's cheating because they must get a keeper every time they take a shot.

Well said Sir, looking forward to your next videos :) subbed !

I was thinking of shooting from the hip or putting the camera around my neck. The idea is to use the camera app and link my phone to one of my Olympus cameras and pretend I'm doing something on my phone and taking photos with my camera but using the app to trigger the shutter.

Yes, shooting from the hip is apparently illegal, as is using burst mode and many other things that are used in street photography by many famous photographers..

Great video for me shooting from the hip is a great technique I use it periodically during a shoot I also shoot with the camera to my eye and I even hold the camera at arms length above my head ill occasionally sit the camera on the floor and shoot blind as I have no tilt screen I think whatever gets the shot works but I have to admit hip shooting is the one I feel least comfortable with if fold see you using the camera in plain sight they don’t generally care if caught hip shooting however it looks sneaky I was caught once hip shooting a bloke heavily backlit running across a road I took the shot he saw me and went off at me demanding I delete the shot at the time I was shooting film so offered to send him the shot but no he just stood there and gave me a right serve. That’s only the second time I’ve been ranted at while shooting street. Since then I still employ hip shooting but certainly not as often.

I guess some consider that shooting from the hip is cheating is because it doesn't involve composing the photo in the view finder. I have tried shooting from the hip and I have even used the timer so I am not even touching my Rolleiflex. It is a lottery. I know some have used a remote to trigger their camera ... there are so many techniques ... burst mode or video mode ...

I'm very new to all of this so perhaps my view is naive, but I think that whilst shooting from the hip is a valid technique there are caveats regarding who, what and where the picture is being taken. By that I mean that it may be legal but there is also a moral dimension, where the law says it is OK but culturally it is highly sensitive. Examples would be other folk's children, accident scenes and people in distress. Each situation has to be evaluated by the photographer 'on the hoof' but we should be prepared to lose our shot if it causes genuine offence or upset. It's a tricky one and I'm most interested in the views of others.