Street report #64 - faces of Vienna for the second time

I bring you the second part of the "Faces of Vienna". Street photography, a genre combining the fields of reportage, art and documentary photography.

Maria-Hilfer-Straße, Graben, Stephansplatz. These are the three locations where I took these photos. They are all busy places with no shortage of interesting people. Most of the time I take photos by sitting on a bench, on the steps of a monument or leaning on a railing somewhere and just looking for a while. That moment of inactivity has its meaning. You blend in with your surroundings and become inconspicuous. At the same time, one also becomes familiar - where people come from and where they go, where they stop, what they look at, where they turn.

It is essential to anticipate when shooting like this. Maybe you'll see an interesting person. When you realize what makes him interesting and worth photographing, when you decide, when you raise the camera to your eye, when he comes into focus... it can take a while for your target to walk a few meters, get into a completely different position, get hidden by other people walking by and finally disappear into the crowd. So you have to pick the right people from a distance, well in advance. The other option is to shoot spontaneously, without much thought and hopes that "it will work out".

Maybe, it's actually no different from photographing animals in the wild.