You've got your camera and you're all set to hit the streets to venture into your first foray of street photography. Good places to start out, especially if you're a bit nervous are street events like block parties, "farmers" markets, and festivals. In those environments, people with cameras aren't that unusual. They general offer a lot of great photo opportunities as people check out the stalls, enjoy the music, sample the "eats", etc. There are also vendors, musicians, and other performers to photograph. Also if you tend to frequent events that occur repeatedly, people become used to seeing you there and you become less noticeable. You can either find a spot to sit and wait for things to happen around you, or you can walk around looking for moments worth photographing. Whichever you decide you always need to have your camera ready, especially when walking around, since great moments happen quickly. If you're not ready, you'll end up telling people about that great shots you missed, instead of showing the great moments you captured.
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But wait... hold on a moment! You need to be able to notice and recognize those moments worth photographing as they happen, or even before they happen. This means you need to learn how to be an observer. Take some time, without your camera, to observe life on the streets. Be aware of your surroundings, the colors, shapes, light, and shadows. Look at the people, how they're dressed, how they appear, how they act and react to their surroundings, and how they act and react among and to each other. Don't just focus on someone or some scene that's happening in front of you. Look beyond the foreground. Often we're so focused on the "subject" we miss something important or interesting or whimsical going on in the background.
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Don't look for what you think are great photographs, just look! Life is happening around you, almost every moment that you observe is unplanned, spontaneous. Most people pass through those moments without noticing them. Until you recognize those moments without a camera in your hand, you're not ready. As you spend time looking, you'll learn to see, and you'll recognize those special moments that are magical and capture them in a way that makes them more than just a photograph. That moment you captured on film or digital should give us something more than a person walking down the street, or two people having lunch at an outdoor café. That photograph should speak to us, it might tell us a story, offer us an insight, or create an emotional reaction within us. Color, Light, shape, and composition are all important, but in the end, it's all about that one frozen moment in time, that you bring life in that photograph, making that "ordinary" moment extraordinary.
