What, IMO, Street-Photography Is All About – One Shot Story

I took this picture eleven years ago and, after all this time, it is still a benchmark for my —and I stress the word ‘my’— definition of street-photography.

The joy sparkling in the grandfather’s expression and the spontaneous excitement of the kid ignite powerful emotions and remind us of what life should be: happyness and simplicity, instead of sorrows, grief and aggressivity.

As I wrote in the then published blog post, when I saw the scene I recognised instantly that it was the kind of moment street photographers chase for years — brief, unrehearsed, and unrepeatable. No posing, no staging. Just a collision of light, gesture, and emotion that existed for a fraction of a second before dissolving into the street’s rhythm again.

This is not a cherry-picked frame from a burst. At the time I was using a fully manual camera and everything —composing, focusing and shooting— happened in the blink of an eye. It was —I must be honest— pure luck. This is so much so, that after all the time in the trade, I am not sure I could do it again.

Technically speaking the photo is far from perfect.

There is too much room above, and a medium-shot or just a slightly tilt-down would have included the whole midsection of the grandfather, making the photo more ‘properly’ composed.

However, what the photo lacks in technical execution, gains in spontaneity. It captures a skecth of life that would easily have passed unnoticed. This is what street-photography means to me.