WHY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY?

My personal "why" behind street photography: how it all started and the lessons I learned along the way.

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Sanjith Kalpat

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Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua © Alex Webb

When I was twelve, the first time I picked up a camera, it felt like entire worlds cracked open. It wasn’t just a tool for creativity, it became a way for me to notice the quiet beauty of this planet, the kind most people walk past without a second thought. Quite ironically, I started out with nature and landscape photography. However, I realized a severe limitation: it was hard for me to envision my own style in this already saturated genre. As time progressed, I thought to myself, how can I make my photos interesting? What style can I employ that will accept anything and everything from me? That’s when it clicked—the idea of not making it about me but instead focusing on storytelling.

Storytelling is a universal power that attaches strings to our emotions. A web of what we perceive and experience in this world we can connect personally with stories. I still remember learning the importance of these modes of creation that give live meaning in 9th grade after watching the Big Fish. This fantastical yet down-to-earth, poignant film pried my eyes to see that the truth we create by ourselves is embedded in our imaginations. In the end, we inherently make our own reality. 

Street photography is the pure essence of the human condition. Here in this hidden place lie endless hidden narratives, moments that often go unnoticed, yet say everything about who we are. These moments are gems that simply don’t need any words to be understood. I think that is the partial reason as to why many accredited street photographers go simple with their photo titles—take Alex Webb, Saul Leiter, Garry Winograd, William Klein, and more. The simple possibility of a story being captured within the everyday ignited the curiosity within me. After discovering this art form and researching the very artists behind it, I RAN along with it. That’s what drew me to the streets: the unwavering honesty. There’s no staging, no curation, no perfect lighting setup. Only life unfolding. As a kid, I was always an observant person. I liked listening more than speaking. In the blur of life, street photography taught me how to notice, be patient, and closely observe. 

More than getting a glance of humanity at its most unadulterated form, street photography is all about presence. Every fleeting glance, every worn-out face, every chaotic intersection—it all tells one thing: you were there. In the moment. Choosing to stop and capture something fleeting solely based on spontaneous instinct and an unwavering feeling of the world revealing itself in a 1/500th-of-a-second snapshot made for you. 

Street photography didn’t just teach me how to see. It taught me how to stay with discomfort, with silence, with the mundane, with myself. 

It showed me that beauty doesn’t always announce itself. It showed me that “good” photos don’t come often, they come with patience and a relentless desire to shoot more. It showed me what life is all about: those in-between moments where nothing dramatic happens, but everything feels alive. 

In that way, the street became a kind of mirror that was not showing me a reflection of who I was, but who I was becoming.