The Big Lie: Why ‘Slowing Down’ Won’t Save Your Photography
A Brief Rant on ‘Slowing Down’
This is a lighthearted but pointed rant aimed at the so-called wisdom endlessly repeated by photography gurus and their echo chambers. Let’s be clear from the start. If you believe slowing down is the secret to making better photographs, you are basically admitting you have been doing it wrong all along. Slowing down is not a noble creative lifestyle. It’s a correction; it’s training wheels for photographers who keep tipping over while pretending they are riding a motorcycle.
Scroll through any photography channel on YouTube, and you will hear it within the first two minutes. Someone says, “I love my Leica M6 because it makes me slow down and really think.” Hop into any Film vs Digital thread on Reddit, and you will find someone bragging, “Shooting Portra 400 forces me to slow down and actually see the world.” Read an old Ken Rockwell piece and you will find him praising his beloved Nikon FM2 for forcing him to slow down, like he is channeling Cartier-Bresson’s ghost at the bus stop.
Watch any Peter McKinnon video and you get “intentional shooting” on repeat. Jump into Fujifilm forums, and you will see it in every other post. “I bought the X100V because those vintage dials make me slow down and appreciate every frame.” Click on street photography videos by Willem Verbeeck or Matt Day, or any twenty-something with a nice sweater, and you will hear the same sermon. “Manual focus is amazing because it makes me slow down and really be present.”
Nothing wrong with any of these mentioned photographers, by the way. I’ve watched and learned from some of them.
But the slowdown thing is all the same broken record. Some stranger in a DPReview comment thread says, “Film changed my life because it slows me down and connects me to the scene.” Meanwhile, they are standing on a sidewalk, shooting a stop sign for ten minutes like it is a Buddhist koan.
It gets old when the revelations to slow down are realized only because a photographer just bought a new camera to play with. After you recognize this trend, you cannot unsee it.
The Issue with Slowing Down for Street Photographers
Here is my problem with this. I shoot street. If I slow down, I lose the moment forever. The good stuff flickers alive for half a second, and if you are standing there fiddling with your retro dial to feel profound, that scene has already disappeared into someone else’s rear-view mirror. Slowing down is the enemy when your subject moves at the speed of real life.
Sure, if you are setting up a long exposure of the ocean at sunrise, slowing down makes sense. You check your tripod, your filter, your settings. You wait for the waves to settle just right so the foam blurs into a dreamy mist. Or if you are hauling around an eight-by-ten view camera, slowing down is baked into the whole circus. Nobody rushes when the film costs twenty bucks a shot.
But most of these slow-down evangelists are not shooting giant negatives in Yosemite. They are wandering around their neighborhood with a Pentax and a fresh roll of Kodak, pretending they found enlightenment. They think turning a metal focus ring makes them spiritual masters of light.
The truth is simple. Slowing down covers sloppy habits. If you have to slow down just to remember to meter properly or set your shutter speed, you were not paying attention in the first place. You do not get a medal for learning how to drive straight after you have already crashed into the mailbox fifty times.
So yes, slow down if your hands are too shaky or you keep blowing out highlights because you cannot read a histogram. Slow down if your horizon lines keep tilting like you are standing on a sinking boat. Slow down if you pace back and forth hoping an idea will land in your lap instead of actually watching the world happen in front of you.
But do not fool yourself. The best shots do not wait for you. The magic flicks on for a heartbeat then it is gone. If your legacy is that slowing down rescued your work, maybe you never really worked at all.
If you need mindfulness, do yoga. If you want to make pictures that breathe, stay awake, stay quick, and grab the scene before it dissolves forever.
Experience Sharpens Speed, Not Stillness
Street photography is not about worshiping slowness or fetishizing retro rituals. It is about timing, awareness, and experience. The more hours you put into the streets, the faster your eyes and reflexes align with what unfolds in front of you. That is not impatience. That is craft. The ability to react in fractions of a second only comes from repeatedly engaging with real, unpredictable life.
The advice to slow down is not wrong in all contexts, but for beginners, it is often misleading. A new street photographer does not need to freeze in place, overthink, and chimp on the LCD. They need to move, look up, and notice. They need to pay attention to the rhythm of the crowd, anticipate body language, and be present enough to spot the fleeting gestures others miss.
Slowing down should never be a mantra. It is simply one adjustment among many, just like speeding up, raising your awareness, or knowing when to stop fiddling with the gear and commit. At its heart, street photography is about responsiveness. The scene does not wait for you to become mindful. If you are lost in slowing down, you are probably missing the shot.
