You’re anxious about taking pictures on the street? That’s OK. We all are. Here are seven tips to calm your nerves, and get out with your camera.

1.    Get in close.
Don’t use a zoom lens. Don’t stand on the opposite side of the pavement. Get right into the crowds. Mingle with your subjects. Use a wide angle lens. If you’re very close, they won’t notice you.

2.    Smile at your subjects.
Beam at them. Say ‘thank you’ to them. It will make you feel more positive.

3.    Get business cards
Get cards printed with your name and the words ‘Street Photographer’. It will make you feel entitled to be shooting on the streets.

4.    Use a professional-looking set up with camera bag and flash.
It will make you look like a professional photographer on an assignment. You’ll feel as though you have a reason to be taking photographs. That will allow you to be more bold, and feel reassured.

5.    Imagine yourself like an actor on a stage
Put on a different persona. Tell yourself you’re on stage. You’re there to greet your public. You’ll feel a different person. Late you can go back to being who you are.

6.    Work out what the worst that can happen.
What’s the worst that can happen? The most likely thing is someone will scowl at you. So what? It won’t do you any harm. It doesn’t matter. That beng the case, tell yourself, ‘I don’t need to happen. The worst that can happen is that someone will scowl. And I can live with that’.

7.    Move quickly.
Shoot a picture, and move on down the street. This will put distance between you and your subjects. In five seconds your subjects will be far way.

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Torn between hope and rage, this crying child looks up at her parents, pleading for a sugary treat.

Want to take street photography of kids? Here are seven tips for better shots.

1. Turn your camera on to adults as well

Don’t photograph just children. Otherwise people will think you’re a paedophile. It’s sad, but true.

2. Don’t photograph at kids’ sites, such as playgrounds.

These days it makes you look like a pervert. There are two exceptions: if you have a child at the playground, it’s fairly safe. And if you’re a woman, it’s more acceptable.  For unaccompanied males, it’s a no-no.

3. Shoot in public places

It’s best to take pictures in open places such as town centres, where people are passing through. Again, this is a safety thing: it will be apparent that you’re there because the population as a whole are there, young and old not just children.

OK, we’ve got past the warnings. Let’s look at taking better photos.

4. Never shoot just one picture

Keep taking pictures. As with other types of street photography, things develop. Kids start fighting each other. They sulk. They get bored and tired. They throw things. Keep your camera out, and keep shooting.

5. Keep an eye out for badly behaved kids

Some children are well behaved. We street photographers aren’t interested in them. Rude and badly behaved ones make better subjects.

Watch out for a row developing between a child and its parents. Supermarkets are good for this, where a child spots a toy or some sugary snack and the parents say no. Then the child has a fit, and the shouting starts. Unfortunately, parents are mostly well behaved and restrained these days, so you don’t generally see them smacking their children.

6.  Get down to the child’s height

If you shoot from eye level, your photos will look down on the child. Even shooting from the waist produces photos taken as if by a giant. So find a place to sit – it will bring you down to the child’s level.

7. Avoid conventional mother and baby shots, especially of your own family

Street photographs work best when there is a distance between the photographer and their subject.

You can usually tell when the photographer knows the subject. There is something relaxed and affectionate about the portrait. It lacks the stoniness that characterises a stranger’s gaze.

Moreover, it’s hard to photograph your own kids well. You’ll photograph your babies’ in a loved one’s arms. That produces often charming pictures, but they rarely have any value expect to the proud parents.

And since your older kids will be used to you taking pictures, they’ll strike poses.

So there you have it. Seven good tips for shooting kids as a street photographer.

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The Saviour had his mind on higher things.

For a street photographer, the audience is more interesting and more challenging than the performers.

The musicians are stuck on stage. They’re a sitting target, so they’re easy to shoot.

The act is usually augmented with colourful lighting and smoke effects, and the background is dark, which silhouettes the players. It’s all too simple.

So, how do you take good shots of people at festivals?

1. You need to be positioned so that you’re facing your subjects, or at right angles to them. If you’re facing the stage, you’ll only see the backs of the audience.

It can be tricky to shoot people in the audience, because they’re facing the musicians. You can try shooting from an angle, from one side of the venue.

2. But it’s often easier to photograph people doing other things at a festival such as eating or pottering around the stalls.

3. You can sit on the grass with a DSLR and shoot away, especially at waist level, using a hinged screen.

4. You can also sit at the edge of a cafe and photograph people passing by.

As the days go by, the festival goers tend to look ever more bedraggled, and therefore ever more photogenic. They get straggly hair, no make up, and mud on their clothes.

Of course the bright blue hat goes perfectly with your camouflage jacket.

Problems with festivals

Festivals are open air and often held in summer. This can mean bright sunshine, which makes for bad photos. People screw up their faces, and wear sunglasses; and the light creates deep shadows where nothing can be seen, and bleaches out the highlights.

When that happens, you have to wait until the sun goes behind a cloud or begins to decline.

And finally it should go without saying they you have to shoot with your back to the sun. Otherwise your subjects’ faces will be in shadow.

Windy days make it hard to manage your hair.

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And that’s part of the fun of supermarket photos. You risk getting spotted by the staff and by your subjects.

So how do you take photos like this one?

One solution is to hold a hand basket in both hands, and hold a camera at the same time. Have a look at the photo below. You have to look quite closely to see there’s a camera pointing at you.

I put a loaf of bread or something else light into the basket, so it looks legitimate, but isn’t too heavy.

And I use a camera with a flip screen, in this case a Samsung MV900F.

It’s a small compact camera so most shoppers don’t notice it.

The average shopper walks around in a daze, absorbed in the array of foods around them, and mentally working out recipes, dishes and school dinners.

The staff are more watchful, but I always keep an eye out for them, and return to normal shopper behaviour when one appears in the aisle.

I never look at the subject. I always concentrate on a product on the aisles, but occasionally glance down at the screen, and make sure it’s pointing at the right place.

When I see a potential subject, I get closer to them and then concentrate my gaze on a shelf near them while shooting several pictures.

Sometimes, a subject walks past before I can photograph them. When that happens, I work out what direction they’re going in, and work out how to intercept them. I do that by missing out a couple of aisles and then walking back towards them.

And here’s a tip. When taking pictures in a store, start at the far end and work backwards.  That way you get people coming towards you. Whereas if you start at the entrance, you are walking in the same direction as everyone else, so you don’t get any faces.

There are technical issues. The light in supermarkets is often weak, so you get some camera shake. But I never expect my street photography shots to be crystal clear. I’m more interested in the subjects. In the case of the man in the ‘wife beater’, he looks out of place with his athletic T shirt and baseball cap. and a bit insecure. Yet there is something purposeful about his gaze and body language.

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Want to go out with the world’s best street photographers, and capture amazing photos?

Right now we’re taking bookings for November, when we’ll be out on the streets taking pictures of the world around us, and swapping experiences.

We’ll be in London, Taipei, New York and San Francisco.

We take no more than ten people out on the street, helping you to take great photos. It’s a whole day experience that lasts a lifetime.

Discover where to take the best photos, how to take pictures unobserved, and how to improve your images.

Everyone gets to contribute at least one photo to our forthcoming book, “Street Photos of the World”.

Want to join us? Send an email to Kits at inst dot org for  fees and information.

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Many people think you need a fancy camera to take great pictures. But the truth is, you just need to take the picture, with whatever camera you have. There’s always one camera you always have with you – and it’s your smart phone.

There are three main types of camera: smartphone, compact and DSLR.

The smartphone, Android or iPhone is always with you. And that’s the biggest advantage. It’s also unobtrusive, and the quality of images taken on a phone camera is getting better each year.

A compact camera has a better zoom than a smartphone, and better resolution (meaning, it can take sharper photos). I like compact cameras a lot for this work.

A DSLR or similar pro type of camera has a powerful zoom, and a high quality lens. So if you want gorgeous photos, this is ideal But it’s a bit bulky and obvious.

So, what kind of camera should you shoot with? answer: whatever you feel confident with.

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