Dear watchers and followers, This journal / feature is the first of a special feature series of journals that we are starting. A selected artist will be highlighted and whom will highlight his genre from within the groups galleries. We have started this series of features with Niklas Lindskog and the genre is street photography. Without wasting more of your time we will start with Niklas introducing himself , his concepts of street photography and then a selection of works from the group and his thoughts on them.
Niklas on Niklas
I'm a 53 year old man from Sweden. I'm married with Anna-Lena and we have two grown kids, who have both flown the nest. When I was young I did athletics, mostly I ran 200-400 meters. At 19 I started coaching and at 27 I became a professional coach. This is still my job, even if I've drifted towards admin duties at the school for 16-19 year old athletes where I work.
I've been into photography for 40 years by now. In the beginning I shot everything, with my friends and athletes as the most common subjects. But when I look at my old negatives, I realize I shot something similar to street photography right from the start. I've always liked to travel and always taken a lot of photos when I did. Since 2010 I've traveled extensively and combined my longing to discover the world with a growing passion for street photography.
Images speak louder than words, and what could be a better way to introduce Niklas than by showing some of his work
Niklas On Street Photography
In my mind, street photography is about the human being and the modern world we humans have built for ourselves. The genre is hard to define and people tend to have a lot of arguments when discussing this. Some think everything is street photography (and that even trying to have a definition would destroy creativity) and some are very restricted in what they would call street. I'm somewhere in between in my personal definition:
- I want to have at least one person in every photo.
- The people I photograph should be persons unknown to me and
- I try to shoot as candidly as I can, in order to capture their natural un-posed behavior.
- It should be shot in a public environment. I normally prefer urban environments, but it's not a rule.
These are just the very basic rules, though. To create a good street photograph you need :-
- emotional human content and
- a strong form factor which enhances this content.
If you succeed with this and are able add spice in the form of amazing light it will be a great street photograph!
A street photo should inspire the viewers, spark their imaginations. The urge to create a story about what's happening in the photo should be irresistable! And when a street photo really succeeds, different viewers should be able to come up with different stories.
Niklas's Selections From The Group
This photo by fellow Swede, Sandas04, is a great example of his style of close up, fly-on-the-wall street
photography. Nils-Eriks photos was maybe the greatest influence on my own style when
I first started publishing street on the Swedish site fotosidan.se in 2012.
A very emotional and also beautiful scene well documented by xACook.
I love this photo by my dear friend Ziaul Kareem. He has a great eye and caught this funny situation so well.
I feel his use of negative space, showing a lot of empty street, enhances the absurdity of the situation.
I had the pleasure of meeting Zia in person in Istanbul last year.
He's such a nice man, I sure hope we get to meet again soon!
Here's a photo from SUDOR, for me a living legend of dA street photography.
He roams the streets of Paris, what seems to be every day for many many years.
And always comes up with gems like this photo of the young woman in the Louvre!
Beautiful composition from my friend José Calheiros. He uses the reflection in a window to create a frame in the frame,
which in this photo makes me feel like the street scene is a piece of "live" art hanging on the wall!
I met José in his home town, Lisbon two years ago and he was very kind to show me around his city!
And I got to experience his driving skills in his beautiful car!
Hope we meet again soon!
Another master of (very very warm) light and shadows, Dubai streetie MARX77,
with his very cinematic wide-screen back-lit silhouette.
Cute street portrait by Izmir streetie tolgatacmahal. There's a hint of a selfie in there too!
I like the intimacy of the moment between the two young women here,
enhanced by the grain and high contrast used by photographer Batsceba.
Here's a street photographer with a very distinctive style. All his photos (that I have seen) feature several
people in business attire in a big city environment, always separated from each other
both IRL and in the photographic sense.
Thought provoking content and nice graphics added though the reflection from jesseboy000.
Jesse from Seattle, USA, is a great up and coming streetie I hope we will get back to dA soon!
His photos are often amusing, the time I spent with my friend Jan Rockar in London in 2015 was similar:
Never a dull moment!
In this shot, I love the contrast between the harshness of the man carrying his beverages and the mysterious object in the window.
Some mystery and maybe comedy by American streetie, Vermontster.
One of many masterpieces from my friend and Brother, Alphan Yilmazmaden of Istanbul!
He is a master of light and shadow and the geometry the sun creates shining on his city.
As in this photo, he manages to combine this exquisite form factor with a wonderful sense of humanism!
I've met also Alphan in Istanbul, both in 2015 and 2016. There is some time left in 2017,
maybe we'll meet again this year, maybe next?
Intense and beautiful street photography on the border to photojournalism from Swiss-American PatrickMonnier.
His photos from his many trips to Central and South America are always an inspiration!
One of my favourites from all of those trademark, super-high-quality street portraits
I've come to know Pakistani InayatShah for.
We at Jenny Stokes Fav's thank Niklas for sparing his time and sharing his talent with the group. His thoughts, opinions and selections are greatly valued.
We look forward to highlighting many other art and artists of various genres. If you would like to volunteer or would like to suggest a artist feel free to inbox either Jenny or myself a note.
