HOW & WHY THE GREATS OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY USED 50MM & MAYBE WE SHOULD TOO…

The 50 millimeter focal length has always been lost on me when taking street photos, but I know it's often regarded as one of the main focal lengths used in the genre. I want to examine how the greats of street photography have used 50mm in their work, look at some of the things I tried to start using it on my own, and hopefully inspire you to try it out as well.

“What you see is what you get” is a mentality commonly associated with this focal length. Knowing that beforehand, I leaned into taking extremely basic compositions. Granted, one of the main things that makes street photography attractive to me is its ability to cement historical context of any time and place that is being photographed. So some photos in this vein can be beneficial to have in a larger collection of photos, especially in the grand scheme of what I'm trying to create—which is a body of work that has a lot of variety while attempting to find a way to make that variety cohesive. So while I don't think any of the images from this category are extremely exciting to look at on their own, they could work in sequence with other photos from any of these locations simply because they add context of what this place looks and feels like in 2025.

I've seen so many photos of Bangkok from the 1950s that exemplify how much the city has changed. All of those photos fall into this kind of category of photo. And they probably weren't all inspiring to look at when they were created, but they're really fun to look at now. With the amount of change constantly taking place in this city, I believe photos like this will hold up in the same way.

Helen Levitt was a photographer who shot exclusively with a 50mm lens. She was obsessed with Bresson’s work, going so far as to take a trip to Mexico and create a book in which she mimicked as many of Bresson’s shots as possible at the locations he photographed in that country. Outside of the Mexico project, her images show the value of a lens that captures things as we see them. 50mm is often touted as being the best focal length to truly convey what we see, without the distortion that comes with wider lenses or the overly compressed nature of longer focal lengths. Levitt’s images embody the notion of conveying reality masterfully because, for the most part, her images simply show what was right in front of her—exactly how it looked. I don't see a lot of layers, close proximity, or motion blur that are the staples of the work of so many highly regarded street photographers. What you do see in her work is reality and an accurate depiction of a time and place.

Going unnoticed also played a role in Levitt’s work. This plays a role in the work of many street photographers and is something those starting out in the genre might find appealing about shooting with 50mm, because it's often regarded as one of the strengths of the focal length. You can stand far enough away from your subject that you don't bother them and you don't disturb scenes. To take this further in capturing her images without drawing attention to herself, she used a right-angle viewfinder that let her look one way and take pictures the other. Going undetected in this fashion allowed her to create candid images while still remaining relatively close.

I usually work with 28 or 35mm focal lengths, so the mentality that comes with wider angle photography is ingrained in me. If you're used to working with wider focal lengths like I am, you're probably more often hunting for your frames. Because of that, when switching to something longer, it's hard to settle down, stay put, and let things come to you. I believe this mindset led me to produce less interesting images during the first few days of trying out 50mm. But when the focal length did work for me, it was usually during moments when I relied more on fishing for photos rather than hunting for them. Luck is a major factor in this, but having enough experience to know how to improve your luck by knowing where to go is also helpful. These frames were probably some of the best of the bunch that I managed to get over the last few days, and they're part of what made me believe that it might be worth it to continue working with the 50mm focal length. It does have the potential to create exciting frames—even if I haven't truly created any yet.

To create those exciting frames, waiting is the name of the game, and that clearly goes hand-in-hand with fishing. Shooting with 50mm gives you the time needed to compose a good shot. When you're shooting wide and trying to get close, it usually means quickly trying to figure out where you want the person in the frame, with little time to consider the surrounding environment—since you usually have to move in, shoot, and move out as fast as possible if you want things to remain candid. As much as I like the high energy I usually feel when shooting streets with wider angles, I did see the advantages that came with having more time to go unnoticed while working out a scene and its composition. Even though it's a bit boring at times, that energy comes back in a different way when you get a shot that was worth the patience.

This is something that came through in the work of another photographer who inspired me to shoot 50mm—Robert Doisneau. He stated, “The marvels of daily life are exciting. No movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.” 50mm was his focal length of choice, and he created some very compelling and layered photos with it. Of the 50mm shooters I examined for this project, Doisneau’s work was mostly new to me. At times, he really shows how dynamic images can be with a slightly longer focal length. He describes fishing as his go-to technique with statements like “Once again it’s good fortune. Once again I waited.” And: “When people talk to me about picture hunters, I quietly laugh. I’m not a hunter of pictures. I’m a fisher of pictures.” According to him, this technique is a question of luck. We wait, of course, but you have to be lucky enough to stumble onto the expression. Even in just a few days of shooting with 50mm, I noticed how much of a difference it made when I found an element that could work and waited for others to come into the frame and add to it. It’s something I’ve done plenty of times in the past, but shooting at this length really made me realize how much more often I should be doing it.

When I’m working with something new and trying to sort it out, I always have this mentality that I want to make things as perfect as possible—because that perfectionism shows that you truly understand what you're working with. However, when I get down to going over the photos and making selects, I’m always drawn to the ones that are more technically bad—skewed, off, and in some cases just plain wrong. The images with light leaks, lens flares, out-of-focus elements, or reels pushed too far in development simply have more character and are less boring to me. But I’ve always had a kind of love for this technically incorrect art. As a music fan, some of my favorite genres are Power Violence, Grindcore, and Noise. I love films that look totally crazy like Tetsuo: The Iron Man or Pi. And there’s a certain continuity in my feeling toward ditching perfectionism, going my own way, and sticking with photos that appeal to me—even if they’re technically wrong.

Robert Frank’s The Americans is almost always an early entry point for people who want to take street photography more seriously. The beauty of this book is how imperfect most of the photos are and how you truly feel the energy of the moment they were taken in. I’ll take photos like this any day over ones that are unbelievably sharp, considered, and—at this point—kind of generic on social media. Even though I understand the appeal of technically superior art, I just personally don’t get a ton out of it. Work like Frank’s is the complete opposite. It makes you ask questions about where the photo was taken and what was happening in the scene. In Frank’s words, “I simply think I have better moments than Cartier-Bresson or anybody else.” When you look at a book of photos, you don’t just think about the moments—you think of what the photographer feels about what he sees. It’s not about aesthetics or lighting; it’s about emotion and reaction. Walker Evans’s photographs almost always have that built in. It’s a perfect look at the right time, straight on and sharp. For me, I worked much quicker and cared less about achieving some possible perfection of a photograph.

The main problem I have with working with film is the inability to work scenes. I could blow through a ton of film and probably walk away with more noteworthy shots, but that’s not really why I’m out here. I like to walk around and explore an area just as much, if not more, than I like to photograph it. However, these past few days working with 50mm motivated me to take at least two or three shots of any given situation where I felt I could get more out of it—and not disturb the scene. In some of these cases, it was worth it. I liked the shot of the woman with the umbrella significantly more than the others I took of her. I would say the same for other shots in this segment. I feel one variant is way better than the other—even though in some instances, the initial shot was the better one. Regardless, I wouldn’t have known without taking that second or third shot.

This is another topic where any number of photographers could be an inspiration, but I’ve chosen Henri Cartier-Bresson for two reasons. One is that he’s well known for shooting with 50mm for many of his photos. The second is that his notion of the “decisive moment” can be misleading. Some are led to believe that Bresson was just so good that he could show up, pop off a shot, and have a masterpiece. In reality, there are instances where he would dedicate an entire roll to one scene. This mentality is something plenty of photographers carry with them today—believing that their hit rate reflects the quality of their photography. While I think it’s ridiculous to shoot 100 frames per second to get the “decisive moment,” I also think people should use the tools at their disposal and at least work their scenes as much as possible.

At the end of the day, these photos were an experiment. Experimentation and failure are necessary to develop as artists. I truly believe that a good body of work has a lot of variance, and one way to add to that variety is through different focal lengths. I wouldn’t say too many of these photos are ones I’m truly proud of, but I’ve learned enough about 50mm through this process to want to keep working with it—try to figure out how to make truly great work with it and unlock insight from more 50mm shooters.

Two photographers who always inspire me to experiment and are credited extensively with using 50mm are Elliott Erwitt and Walker Evans. Both shot a variety of subjects in a variety of ways. Whether it’s Erwitt’s use of humor and cropping or Evans’s techniques like hiding his camera in his coat to capture candids, these two helped expand what a photographic voice can look like. Related to this topic of not being afraid to experiment, Erwitt once said, “You don’t study photography. You just do it. I’m not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.” Walker Evans said, “When I first made photographs, they were too plain to be considered art, and I wasn’t considered an artist. I didn’t get any attention. People thought, ‘That’s just a snapshot of the backyard.’ Privately, I knew otherwise, and through stubbornness, stayed with it.”

Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me the 50mm I used in this video—I enjoyed using it and will definitely be using it more.