Street photography: follow your street heroes

Thursday 22 October 2020, 20:02 by Jan Poldervaart | 8,074 views | 6 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

In this blog, we follow our street heroes. These heroes are various well-known street photographers who put street photography on the map. They are also the people on the street that we photograph ourselves.

But as the title says: go and follow your street heroes. So this time, street photography seen from behind.

Most street photographers do not like photographing people from behind. It is seen as too easy. I will show you that you can also take special street photos from behind.

If you are, or want to become, a street photographer, it is useful to study the history of street photography as well. Get to know the street photographers who came before you.

Above all, read books about them and look online, and let yourself be inspired. That is often even better than buying a new lens.

Henri Cartier Bresson

Well-known and lesser-known street photographers are our heroes. The best-known hero is of course Henri Cartier Bresson, co-founder of the Magnum photo agency.

Cartier-Bresson travelled around the world for the major photography magazines at the time. He published many photobooks, the most influential of which was: The Decisive Moment (1952).

He captured situations from life on the street perfectly in a single shot with his Leica 35 mm. They are not necessarily beautiful photos, in my opinion, but they are almost always photos with a great deal of impact.

Read more about Bresson online or read books by or about him.

Robert Frank

Robert Frank, another great hero, was an American photographer and filmmaker. He became known for a photobook from 1958, entitled The Americans.

He was the poet of photography through his way of photographing using visual rhymes and visual sequences.

More street heroes

Bruce Gilden should not be missing as a hero of street photography either. He is especially known for his spontaneous close-up portraits of people, photographed in black and white, and is notorious for using flash on people in the street.

Gary Winogrand worked extensively on the streets of New York. He also photographed in many other places, such as rodeos, airports and zoos, as well as other subjects: lots of women, but also animals and lots of cars.

Because he said that the subject of his photo did not interest him, Winogrand did not want to be pinned down as a photographer of a particular subject.

Vivian Maier, who worked as a nanny, took more than 150,000 photos over the years, mainly of people and the architecture of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But around 1960 she also travelled to other parts of the world.

Maier's work remained unknown during her lifetime and many of her rolls of film were never developed. Shortly before her death, several boxes containing her belongings were bought at an auction. This heroine took wonderful street photos.

The female photographer Helen Levitt was also American. She was also mainly known as a street photographer.

The list of foreign street photographers is very long, and naming and describing them all would go too far for this blog. But above all, go and follow your own heroes.

Dutch heroes

There are also countless street photographers in the Netherlands. The best known is of course Ed van der Elsken. Van der Elsken was especially fascinated by people in all kinds of cultures and circumstances.

Otto Snoek is one of Rotterdam's best-known photographers. Rotterdam is often the subject of his work, which has been included in numerous books and exhibitions.

In his photos, he tries to capture the colourful sense of unity between the figures who walk into his camera's view.

Merel Schoneveld has been a street photographer since 2016. Since then, she has photographed almost every time with clockwork regularity.

She views the world without embellishment and captures her perspective in high-contrast black-and-white photos. There is something happening in every photo. Her images certainly do not bore me. This young photographer is well worth following.

Stand behind your street heroes

If you ask any street photographer how they prefer to take their photos, most will answer that they also want to see faces.

That often shows the state the person is in, or you see special or strange expressions on their face. Most photographers do not like photographing someone from behind, as it is too easy.

In principle, I am also a photographer who prefers to see people from the front. However, I do not shy away from taking photos from behind. You often end up with fun images that you would not have wanted to miss.

Just look at the following photo. The little boy with the hat. He is hidden among lots of adults. You can only see their legs. The little boy immediately stands out.

You may wonder who this little boy belongs to? Where is he going? And if you look closely, he is carrying a little spade in his hand.

The next group of young women has hired a red bicycle in Rotterdam. Probably with a guide.

You might think from the photo that this is where their ride through the city starts. After all, that is what is written on the front of the beautiful Rotterdam market hall, also known as Rotterdam's cathedral of shopping.

And to complete the picture, the guide will soon say: come on, girls, let's get going. All he has to do is look behind him to see this amusing phrase.

Art is often found on the street. You can see that in the next photo. Beautiful tattoos on this woman's back and arms. Next to her is someone else who also has all kinds of beautiful designs on their arms. You would not see something like this if you photographed these people from the front.

Here too, I wonder why these people have such a work of art put on their bodies. What does it mean to them? I would prefer to start a conversation, but then I see another great street photo and off I go again.


Martin Bril would surely have been very pleased with this photo. He was the inventor of skirt day. He wrote for Parool and de Volkskrant, among others.

He could write brilliantly about everyday things. Sadly, Martin Bril died in 2009. But what cheerfulness. Colour and flowers on a lovely summer's day.

Your day cannot go wrong when you are walking around the city taking photos. On the right of the photo, you can just see a delicious ice cream. If only it were summer again.


So you can see that street photography taken from behind does not have to be boring. Of course, you need to keep looking around you, because before you know it, the ultimate photo is right in front of you.

Hopefully you have been inspired to start taking street photos again.

If you have read this piece, you probably enjoy reading too. So look up Martin Bril as well. It is sure to cheer you up. Something to get you through the autumn and winter months.

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