A blurred background does not remove the street. It does not turn a real moment into something false. It simply changes the emotional temperature of the photograph.

Depth of field is not a moral choice. It is a visual choice.

A deep depth of field may describe the scene clearly. A shallow depth of field may describe the same scene differently — less as information, more as memory, mood, and atmosphere. It can move the photograph into a zone between reality and dream.

And for me, that zone is very interesting.

This article is not pro or against one or the other. I shoot much with shallow depth of field in periods, and in others I go for the classic deep depth of field.

The Street Does Not Have to Be Sharp to Be Present

Street photography is often discussed as if everything must be visible, clear, and sharp to be honest. But that is too narrow.

Reality is not experienced with everything equally sharp. When we walk through a city, our attention shifts constantly. One face becomes important. A colour catches the eye. A reflection interrupts the scene. A shadow hides part of a figure. A window separates us from what is happening inside.

The world is always partly clear and partly hidden.

Shallow depth of field can describe that experience beautifully.

It does not have to exclude the surroundings. It can include just as much of the scene as a photograph made with deep depth of field. The difference is that some parts are toned down. They become quieter. They still carry meaning, but they do not push for attention.

That is very different from simply blurring the background into nothing.

A good shallow-depth-of-field street photograph does not erase the world.
It lowers the volume of some parts of it, so other parts can come forward.

Exactly as shadows do.

Exactly as reflections do.

Exactly as architecture, windows, doorways, rain, mist, and foreground structures do.

We do not say that a photograph stops being documentary because a shadow hides part of the scene. We do not say that a picture stops being street photography because a doorway frames only part of a person. So why should blur be treated differently?

Blur is not the enemy of documentary photography.

Blur is one of its possible languages.

Saul Leiter and the Poetic Street

Saul Leiter is, for me, one of the most important photographers when thinking about this.

I was not aware of him when I started photographing in this way, but later, studying his work, I found great pleasure in discovering a kindred approach. Leiter permits to work with the street as something real, but also mysterious. He shows that documentary photography does not have to be literal to be true.

His photographs often feel like glimpses. A red umbrella. A figure behind glass. A taxi passing through snow. A face partly hidden. A large blurred foreground taking up most of the frame, while the so-called subject sits quietly somewhere within it.

The Saul Leiter Foundation describes how his black-and-white and colour photographs often played with foreground and background, shadow, reflection, and bold composition. His colour work, especially, changed how photography could treat the ordinary street as something painterly and emotionally charged.

Leiter himself said:

“A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.”

That sentence says a lot.

He was not chasing the obvious subject. He was interested in surfaces, interruptions, fragments, and the beauty of what most people pass by. Rain on glass could be enough. A blurred shape could be enough. A colour could be enough.

He also said:

“I like it when one is not certain what one sees… all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.”

That is exactly where shallow depth of field can become powerful in street photography.

Not as a trick.

Not as a commercial look.

Not as a way to make the background pretty.

But as a way to let the viewer enter the picture slowly.

Between Reality and Dream

A shallow-depth-of-field street photograph can still be documentary. It is still made from the real world. It still depends on observation, timing, light, and the presence of life in front of the camera.

But it changes the documentary style.

It moves it toward something less literal. Something closer to memory. Something closer to dream.

This does not make it weaker. It can make it more personal.

A deep-depth-of-field photograph may tell us what the street looked like.

A shallow-depth-of-field photograph may tell us what it felt like to be there.

That feeling matters.

Street photography is not only about evidence. It is also about experience. The way light falls. The way colour appears for a second. The way a person moves through the city without noticing us. The way a figure behind glass becomes both present and unreachable.

Leiter understood this beautifully. He once said:

“Photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you’d never paid attention to.”

That, to me, is the heart of street photography.

Not equipment. Not rules. Not whether the background is sharp or blurred. But learning to see.

Not Fashion Blur, But Documentary Intention

Of course, shallow depth of field can be used badly.

It can become an easy style. A sharp person against a creamy background. Pleasant, polished, and empty. That is often closer to a commercial or fashion approach, where the background is reduced to decoration behind the subject.

That is not what interests me. The important thing is intention.

In a documentary approach, out-of-focus parts should still be part of the photograph. They should carry atmosphere, information, colour, movement, or emotional weight. They may be soft, but they should not be meaningless.

A blurred figure in the background can still tell us something. A defocused area that fills a lot adds the environment in a subtle, elegant way, and creates a different mood.

My approach is to include the environment most of the time, but keeping it in the back to add focus on a main subject, or in other situations to add a dreamy atmosphere, leaving it to the viewer to interpret it. Opening the eyes instead of delivering it all on a plate.

This is where Saul Leiter is so important. His work does not feel like the street has been removed. It feels like the street has been filtered through perception.

He once said:

“There are the things that are out in the open and then there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden, maybe.”

That could almost be a manifesto for this kind of photography.

The real world is not only what is clearly visible. Sometimes the hidden part carries the emotion.

Challenging the Normal Idea of “Real Street”

I am not afraid of working against what the majority may see as “real” street photography or a proper documentary style.

Street photography has many traditions. Some are sharp, direct, graphic, and fast. Others are softer, quieter, more poetic. One is not more real than the other.

Henri Cartier-Bresson gave us timing, geometry, and the decisive arrangement of life inside the frame. Garry Winogrand gave us energy, chaos, and social complication. Joel Meyerowitz gave us colour, movement, and the full life of the street.

Saul Leiter gave us something else.

He gave us the street as a half-seen poem.

He showed that you can photograph the real world without explaining everything. You can let colour, blur, shadow, and reflection carry the image. You can allow uncertainty to become part of the experience.

That is not less street.

It is simply another way of seeing the street.

And sometimes, to challenge the normal is exactly where the photograph begins.

The Cliché of the “Cinematic Look”

I also want to reply to the cliché that shallow depth of field is just a “cinematic look.”

Cinema is not one visual language. Many great films use deep depth of field, layered compositions, shadows, and complex frames. Think of The Third Man — often associated with Orson Welles because of his unforgettable performance, but directed by Carol Reed. Its atmosphere comes from shadows, angles, architecture, and layered black-and-white imagery, not from a simplistic idea of blurred backgrounds.

So shallow depth of field is not automatically cinematic.

And deep depth of field is not automatically documentary.

Both can be used with intelligence. Both can be used without thought.

For me, shallow depth of field is simply a tool to concentrate the viewer’s eye on a certain area of the image, while still allowing other layers to remain visible. It can guide the eye. It can create rhythm. It can place the viewer inside a mood.

The trick is not to exclude the surroundings.

The trick is to let the surroundings remain present, but in another tone.

When the Background Whispers

I like the idea that an image can contain much of the scene, exactly as it would with deep depth of field, but with the background speaking more quietly.

That is the key.

The blurred background is not gone. It is whispering. And whispers can be powerful.

A whisper can make us lean in. It can create curiosity. It can make the viewer spend more time with the photograph. Instead of being told everything immediately, we have to search. We have to feel our way through the image.

Leiter’s photographs often do this. They do not give themselves away at once. They invite the viewer to stay.

That is something I value deeply in photography.

A photograph does not always have to explain itself quickly. Sometimes it should hold back. Sometimes it should leave space for uncertainty.

As Leiter said:

“My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.”

That is a beautiful way to think about street photography.

Fragments of endless possibilities.

Not complete explanations.

Not perfect descriptions.

Fragments.

Wide Open or Stopped Down?

So should street photography be shot wide open or stopped down?

Both.

But for different reasons.

Stop down when the whole frame needs to be read clearly. When the geometry matters. When several people, signs, shadows, and gestures need to connect. When the photograph depends on the viewer exploring the entire scene.

Open up when the image needs mood. When attention should fall on one part of the frame. When the surroundings should still be present, but softer. When colour, atmosphere, reflection, or memory matter more than detail.

Aperture is not only a technical setting.

It is a way of deciding how loudly each part of the photograph should speak.

Deep depth of field can make the street speak in full voice.

Shallow depth of field can let part of it whisper.

Both are valid.

Both can be documentary.

Both can be street.

My Own Pleasure in This Approach

As I have studied Saul Leiter, I have found great pleasure in seeing how close his approach comes to something I was already exploring instinctively.

Not copying him. Not trying to become him. But recognising a way of seeing that feels honest to me.

Not excluding deep depth of field. It all counts, and in periods I do more of one than the other.

Sometimes the real mood of a place is found in what is partly hidden. In the shadow. In the reflection. In the blur. In the colour just behind the subject. In the figure we almost see. At other times the full picture is the most interesting.

It is not a weakness to make variations. That is the nature of photography.

Learn to Use Depth of Field With Intention

This is one of the things we work with in my street photography workshops.

Not as a rule. Not as a recipe. But as a way of seeing.

We explore when the photograph needs clarity, and when it needs mystery. We work with shallow depth of field without losing the street. We look at how to include the surroundings, even when they are soft. We use shadows, structures, colour, reflections, windows, and layers to lead the eye and build mood.

We also work with the opposite: deep depth of field, timing, geometry, and the full readable frame.

Because the goal is not to decide that one approach is better.

The goal is to understand what the photograph needs.

If you want to develop this way of seeing — more intentional, more personal, and less controlled by fixed ideas of what “real street photography” should look like — join one of my upcoming workshops.

Bring your camera, your curiosity, and one lens you want to understand deeply.

We will work on the street, where these decisions actually matter: in changing light, with real people, real movement, real uncertainty, and real moments.

You will learn to use depth of field not as a style, but as a language.

Sometimes sharp.

Sometimes soft.

Sometimes somewhere beautifully between reality and dream.