Shoot from the hip

Sometimes a great way to experiment is to try getting seemingly random shooting techniques to work – particularly if you’re doing street photography/social documentary types of images. The classic issue street photographers have always had is that as soon as you hold up a camera, people start behaving differently. As a street photographer, its essential to come up with ways of being more stealth.

One great solution I’ve found that works great on the iPhone is to use an app that essentially does time-lapse photography. There is some criteria you’ll need first with an app to do what we’re talking about. You’ll need to be able to shoot silently by turning off the fake shutter sound. You’ll need to be able to set the shooting interval (most apps will do this) and I also like the ability to turn off the screen as you won’t be looking at the screen to compose. The iPhone has a wide enough angle to it where you’ll be able to start getting the feel for composition without having to line things up exactly.

One app I like in particular is TimeLapse by Yuval Frandzel. Timelapse can be used to actually stitch together TimeLapse videos which it does wonderfully. It also has all the options you need for setting the camera up to just shoot at certain intervals. You can also choose to darken the screen which is nice (also conserves battery while its shooting).

Try Timelapse for the iPhone or something similar – get out and experiment.