A city is made up of many components, for example skyscrapers of various kinds, fast-walking pedestrians, vehicles whipping by and more. One thing in common is that they can all be found on streets and alleys. These streets and alleys may look ordinary to people who are busy making a living, but to photo enthusiasts the busy scenes are valuable photographic subjects to explore. We can take photos of fast-walking pedestrians using slow speed shutters, or give a twist to the ordinary perception of streets from a brand new perspective to reveal the diversity of streetscapes.

Hong Kong is a busy city. Everyday the streets are crowded with people during rush hours. Shooting with a slow speed shutter is a simple and magical way to capture a blurry scene of people rushing on the street. In this photo, the people in motion look like flowing waves. Although it did not capture the faces and movements in clarity, this kind of portrait in motion blur can convey the busy and prosperous atmosphere in a lively way. Together with the strong contrast between the static background and the blurry people, this photo illustrates a sense of motion in quiescence subtly.

To capture photo of this kind, we must use a tripod so that the camera can capture sharp images even under long exposures. Besides, it is important to select a good shooting location. In addition to the number of people passing a place, we should also look at the direction of flow. A lateral flow and longitudinal flow will result in completely different visual effects. As we can see in the above photo, the afterimage in a lateral flow appears in the form of translucent lines (figure 1), while the afterimage in a longitudinal flow looks clearer with blurry edges around the portraits (figure 2).

To capture photos of moving people in motion blur, shutter speed plays an important role. A shutter speed of 1s or slower is suggested, and you can adjust further according to the scene and walking speed. Use the lowest ISO as possible in order to enhance the image quality. Besides, to avoid causing inconvenience to others, we suggest to shoot with a telephoto zoom lens. A long focal length can also help compress the distance to achieve better composition that is packed with people.

We can also create stunning streetscape images by capturing traffic light trails with slow speed shutters. As this happens at night, the moving, bright beams of light of the vehicles whipping by captured using slow speed shutters can create photos that depict an illusionary world with a touch of technological fantasy and futurism. Coupled with the night cityscape as background, photos that show a splendid view like above can be captured.

For camera setting, we suggest to use Manual mode and control the exposure time within 5s to 20s. Take a few shots to test and adjust further according to the actual environment. As the headlights and rear lights are strong light sources and a long exposure time is required, we should adjust to a small aperture (f/8 or f/16) and low ISO setting (ISO 100) accordingly. This can not only increase the depth of field and suppress image noise, but also create beautiful starburst effect to enrich the photo in terms of composition and details. By using different white balance settings, you can also realize more creative expression in photo colors and styles. Take this photo as example. Both car and street lamps are warm light sources. If you want to create a cooler look and feel for the nightscape, you can set the white balance to 2800-3800K to add a tint of blue to the image.

Hong Kong is a well-developed city and various landmark skyscrapers can be found here. For street photography, architecture is always a readily available photo element. To simply include buildings in your composition may seem a bit boring. By using fisheye lenses supporting diagonal fisheye effect with 180° angle of view, you can twist the buildings and streetscape on the four image corners to create exaggerated, interesting and lovable distortion effect, capturing a view that is invisible to the naked eyes.

For streetscape photo of this kind, the main consideration is composition. Through a fisheye lens, the objects at the image center will remain unchanged while all other objects will have their horizontal and vertical lines appeared twisted. If it is your intention to give a twist to the vertical lines of buildings for a stronger visual impact, you can position the high-rise buildings on both sides of the framing. The photo will have a more dramatic effect with buildings appearing bending towards the image center. When working on the composition, you should be careful that no clothing or part of your body is included in the composition accidentally.

In addition to fisheye lenses, tilt-shift lenses can also add to the creativity when taking streetscape photos. Take this photo as example. The image center showing a few pedestrians and market stalls is relatively sharp while the areas above and below it are featured with strong, shallow depth of field effect. The overall photo looks like a miniature with interesting effects.

Tilt-shift lens can adjust the image’s perspective in details by changing the optical axis directly. In general, the shift function is used when we angle up the camera to shoot to correct perspective distortion that makes buildings appear to converge at the top. To create interesting miniature-scale effect like the above photo, we can use the tilt function instead. First, select an elevated location and mount the camera on a tripod and aim down. Then adjust the lens’ optical axis upwards using the tilt function and focus on the target – in this case the pedestrians and market stalls. This can create extremely shallow depth of field effect on the surrounding objects for a miniature result. Besides, we can shoot in Live View mode with grid line display to help achieve better composition and arrangement of different photo elements.

The streetscape is made up of a large number of objects of various kinds, and each type of object is unique in terms of colors and patterns. By making use of geometrical symmetry or color contrast, we can create photos with a great sense of balance, contributing to the creation of nice streetscape photos even for ordinary objects. For example, this photo divides the composition into two identical halves along the central axis. Objects like handrails and buildings look like a mirror image, resulting in photo that shows the beauty of geometry.

We need to pay extra attention to the composition when taking photo of this kind. First, we need to find a scene where there are objects with similar structures and appearances. Like the above photo, the buildings with same heights and fa?ades featuring the same protruding structures make it easy to achieve a symmetrical photo result. Second, these geometrical patterns repeat themselves in shape and line, creating a rhythmical pattern that can draw attention and is appealing to the eyes. To create stronger visual impact of the kind of pattern, we can fill both sides of the composition with the patterns to create an extruding effect.

There are many well-known streets in Central and Sheung Wan districts, such as Graham Street and Wing Lee Street. These places remind us of the nostalgia for the old Hong Kong. While human eyes see things in colors to induce visual pleasure, the proper use of black and white images to capture historical scenes can create mood and artistic photo result. For example, the photographer of the above photo taken at Wing Lee Street used the strong contrast of black and white to emphasize texture of the street and tenement buildings. A street lamp standing along the diagonal line of the photo leads the sight of readers to the end of the road, enhancing the photo as if it was telling a story.

While most cameras feature a black and white mode for easy shooting, we still have to pay attention to the contrast level and light source. Take the above photo as example. The indoor lighting and street lamp created a strong contrast to the dark environment. We should take this contrast level in consideration before moving on to other details. For light source, it can be roughly divided into two kinds – front lighting and side lighting. Front lighting can enhance the contrast level of the scene while side lighting can help reveal the texture of objects. The above photo was taken with side lighting mainly, thus reproducing sharp and delicate objects and lines. To add a stronger nostalgic touch to the photo, we can turn off the noise reduction function on the camera and use a higher ISO setting such as ISO 6400 to increase image noise. The grainy photo will remind us of the old streetscapes of Hong Kong. A photo can freeze a moment of what is happening on the streets and alleys. Whether it is the busy main street or the tranquil alleys, there are countless imaging possibilities for us to explore. So grab your camera and hit the streets today.