As a street photographer, your first lesson is mastering the art of invisibility; wearing the invisibility cloak. Always try and find ways to keep your camera and yourself out of your subject's sight while you photograph them. This is important because it helps you capture, raw and natural photographs without the person getting conscious of being watched. Photographers, who have mastered this ability, take the concept of candid photography to a completely different level.
That's the only way your photographs will stand a chance to connect with the viewers. A great connection is established when you wait for the right moment, when you are patient. That moment is so important because it will never come back in the way it was gifted to you. It's the job of a good photographer to freeze that moment in time, by capturing it.
Learning to see is an essential characteristic of a photographer's eye. Look around yourself. Observe the various elements in the scene. Discern the inherent details. View and review the scene. As you do so, you discover a lot of passive things, which never seemed to have caught your eye. Remember, composition is key. Think in terms of composition, lines, patterns, balance, and simplicity; they will lead the viewer's eye into your photograph. Looking at things around you in this manner eventually leads you in discovering an interesting image from an ordinary scene.
The perfect photograph could be a result of either great luck or great art. Professionals get the images they want by working the shot. It's all about discovering the image. It's all about composing and re-composing the shot by changing the angle of view, anticipating the moment, zooming in, maybe zooming out, subtracting some elements or even re-arranging them till you arrive at an image that satisfies the artist in you.
You can't succeed by sitting on your desk, reading and researching about photography. You have to get outside to look, observe and experience the moments that you've been missing. And you've got to do it alone. Hold some private lessons with yourself. Photography requires a lot of concentration. And such focus can be attained when you practice the art by yourself, with no one but yourself to disturb you.
The best things happen, when you give yourself up to the surroundings. Always remember there might be a limit as to what the eyes can see, but an artist's vision is limitless.
