TTo be honest, I’ve always harbored a resistance and discomfort toward the subject of Street Photography. My lens is accustomed to contemplating stillness, whereas street photography requires confronting the chaos and randomness of human traffic.
Yet, following the strong suggestion of a friend, I eventually armed myself with my camera and, despite my reluctance and resignation, plunged into the fashionable streets of SoHo, New York, to begin this practice. The process of shooting was genuinely “painful”: it required breaking through my psychological barriers, struggling to find a rhythm within an unfamiliar genre, and confronting not just rapidly moving pedestrians but also my own inner resistance.
However, the final resulting photographs provided a distinct surprise. The light, moments, and emotions that the lens inadvertently captured were far more vibrant and powerful than I had anticipated. A sudden realization struck me: if one can set aside their internal reluctance and discomfort, street photography offers a unique potential—faithfully documenting the contemporary atmosphere and the living pulse of people and events.
This was undoubtedly a fascinating breakthrough. Perhaps this experience in New York’s SoHo district marks an unexpected prelude to my personal history of street photography.
