Why you should stop looking at your LCD screen in street photography

How many times have you done this: you take a photo of something you like, you take your camera away from your eye, and you hit the “Play” button on the back of your camera to look at the photo you just took. Maybe you zoom in to check the focus, maybe you show it to your friends, maybe you even start scrolling through other photos from that day…

I think the number one thing that newer street photographers can do to improve their photography is to stop looking at their LCD screen while out shooting.

Street photography is all about being in the moment. You want to be attuned to the environment around you, sensing and probing for those compelling, provocative, or engaging compositions. This requires perceptiveness and acuity. Standing around gawking at the back of your camera is the opposite of that. In the same way that you’re far more prone to bumping into strangers when walking down the street looking at your phone, taking time looking at your LCD screen takes your focus away from your environment and reduces your senses’ ability to absorb information from your environment.

When great street photographers find an exciting scene, they don’t just take one photo. They take a ton. To borrow terminology from Eric Kim, you have to work the scene.

Every compelling scene that you come across is fleeting – so don’t waste the opportunity by taking one photo and moving on. Try different framing, angles, perspectives, etc. The scene might develop as you spend more time with it; new compositions may emerge, or new subjects may enter. Take the photos now and figure out the best ones later (this is known as editing). If you stop to look at your screen, who knows how many countless opportunities you’ve missed. And since you’ve now seen your one photo, you may decide that’s the best you could do, and settle with that result.

I think there’s sometimes a weird myth among non-photographers that the best photographers are like expert marksmen – one shot, one kill. It’s not true at all. The best photographers are those who shoot prolifically, and then can most selectively choose their best shots.

It’s a hard feeling to describe in words, but when you’re out shooting street photography, you can sometimes enter a flow state where you’re just “in the zone.” You simply feel inspired, and compositions start popping out to you everywhere you look. But, you can’t reach that state if you’re constantly stopping to look at your screen.

One of the reasons multi-tasking is hard is because of the cost of “context switching.” As you switch back and forth from one context to another, it takes your brain several moments to adjust and load “from memory” what you were previously trying to accomplish. In the same way, as you look back up from your screen, you might forget something that earlier caught your eye.

For some people, it’s a habit and habits are hard to break. Here are some things you can try that might help.

Shoot on a film camera. You can’t get caught looking at an LCD screen when your camera has no LCD screen. But seriously, one of the biggest advantages of using a film camera is that it puts the focus solely on shooting.

Turn off auto preview. The setting may go by a different name on different cameras – but what I mean is that some cameras will by default, after taking a photo, quickly flash a preview of the photo you just took on the LCD screen. Besides being distracting, on some cameras this setting will actually slow the rate at which you can take photos since it puts more load on the software.

Tape over your LCD screen. A drastic approach, but an effective one. As long as your other settings are already configured the way you want them, there’s probably not much you would have needed your screen for anyway.

Good luck!