I was recently able to view some street photography of people walking around the city from the private collection of fashion/beauty photographer Michael Brandt. (Though his professional work is available at the link above, the street shots are unfortunately not available for us to print here.) I was struck by how well-composed the shots are, and how close they are to subjects that seem completely natural and unaware of the camera. When I asked him how he consistently manages to get such shots, he said he shoots literally from the hip, having precalculated the focusing distance and discreetly pulling the trigger when his moving targets step into the field of focus.
Shooting from the hip is a tricky proposition for most of us non-professionals, who can probably pull it off only with the help of a flip-out LCD on an angle that allows us to see what we're capturing. Designer Yaniv Berg's DSLR camera concept is designed specifically for the purpose, with a periscope-like form factor that forgoes the usual brick-and-cylinder body. We doubt it will take as the design seems to preclude eye-level photography, but we are interested to see younger designers rejecting a body shape that Cartier-Bresson was toting around in the '30s.
via cnet