In his 1980 book, Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes introduces two concepts for understanding a photograph: studium and punctum. In this article, I would like to explain my personal interpretation of these ideas and how I apply them to my own photography, and street photography in particular. It is not my intention to summarize Barthes’ book. If you’d like a deep understanding of his ideas, I highly recommend reading it!

Think of this article as a personal digest of that material. I emphasize that my ideas here are very much a mutated interpretation of the original. This is intentional! We should all absorb the philosophical understanding we gain from others and make it useful for ourselves, in our own unique contexts. So, I encourage you to do the same upon reading my short piece on the matter, as well as Barthes’ original deep dive.

Ikigai (生き甲斐) is a Japanese word that can be read literally as a “life’s worth” but can be more appropriately translated as the “purpose of one’s life.” The term seems to have been popularized in Japan in the mid-twentieth century, eventually making its way onto pop-science blogs and whatnot throughout the internet. Somewhere along the way it was broken down into four basic components that are often presented in a clever Venn diagram.

I first set foot in Japan in 2007 and I was immediately swept away by a seemingly endless metropolis packed with hidden lanes, decrepit corridors, and a patina of decay splashed with vivid neon light. I know I romanticize it. That can’t be helped—Tokyo is a romantic place! Rationally, I can understand that I may be looking at past Tokyo through rose-tinted glasses, and my early experiences of it are most likely exaggerated in my memories. But I also know Tokyo has changed losing so much of its charm in the process, and I have photographic evidence to prove it.

To consider how to do street photography ethically, it’s important to first define its value. Otherwise, if street photography has no value, then any questions of ethics should end with simply: just don’t take the photo. So, what is the value of street photography? I think there are two main benefits, or categories of benefits: the personal and the social. I cannot speak for other people, but for me street photography has immense personal value. It is a form of meditation or praxis, that allows me to observe, understand, and appreciate the world.

After years of teaching photography workshops in Tokyo, many of them focusing on street photography, some of the most common questions I get are about the legality of conducting street photography in Japan. Of course, I’ve researched this many times over the years to make sure I am up to date rules in case the law has changed, and I want to share my findings with you.

How do I decide how to create my art? Why do I take a photo of this but not that? Of course, we can act based on our feeling in the moment, or there is some external influence that inspires or motivates a particular action, but perhaps there is something more explicit guiding us.

Over the years, I’ve tried to define a framework that underlies my creative decisions and generate a system of values. A value is simply a statement about a particular concept or aspect in my artwork. For example, I value color in my photos. Based on that value, I strive to create the best colors I can. Of course, we cannot stop there. Each value can be refined into more and more specific details, or sub-values. What do I mean by ‘best’ colors? Should the colors be realistic, retro, muted, vivid, neon?

I’ve been asked before how exactly I make a living as a photographer, especially since I apparently spend so much time doing urban or street photography. To answer that question, I made a vlog: How I Make a Living as a Street Photographer. The gist of it is that I don’t really make a living directly from street photography, but I have plenty of work that’s closely related. Although I like the casual conversational style of the vlog, I felt it wasn’t quite comprehensive enough, so here is a concise and precise summary of how I turned my love of street photography into a living.

Maybe a better question is: “how should you get your colors?” But more on that later. First, I have to explain my thought process when it comes to color, as it underscores my entire approach. If you just want to jump into the specific things that I do, just watch this video: 7 Tips for Editing Color Photos.

Have you ever lost yourself in the act of artistic creation? When I am out shooting in the city, sometimes the hours flow like minutes. Street photography can be so engrossing that it is a shame to snap out of it—to come back to regular life—after being ‘one with the street’ for hours on end. For me, in the beginning, I couldn’t always count on entering this mindful state. At times it happened, and at others I could not get myself there. It was like slipping into a dream, and just at the moment of lucidness I would wake up. This was disappointing, because I find that I do my best work in this mental state, not to mention that it is blissful and refreshing. So, what exactly is happening, and how to cultivate this mode of working in the streets?

When we get better at photography, particularly street photography, what is the core skill that we are actually building? Certainly, we need to learn how to use the photographer’s tools: the camera, the lens, lighting, the usage of film or application of digital editing, and so on. And of course, the exact tools of the trade vary. What is crucial for one photographer is useless for another. However, I would argue there is one universal skill that comprises the foundation of photography: perception. The fundamental aspect of what we do is simply put as seeing. It is this ability which we need to learn, to improve, and to sharpen in order to get better at photography.