John Free — The best street photography educator you will ever learn from
John Free was an L.A based street photographer, who’s teachings were a huge influence for me. I would argue that he was one of the most well-informed and sophisticated educators in the field, which is why I would like to tell you about him today.
Photo credit: John Free, from his longstanding, and perhaps his best known documentary series of railroad tramps in California.
John Free’s legacy stands among the most valuable sources of wisdom ever shared on the art of street photography
Sadly John passed away last year in 2024, but you know what they say: what we do in our lives echoes in eternity — and what we can now hear in the echoes of eternity, is John’s legacy; his deep insight and wisdom, that he openly shared and left for us to study.
John Free was legit. Old school. His fame didn’t originate from social media or YouTube. His intention wasn’t becoming an Instagram star, but to elevate the art of street photography via honest education.
While I deeply admire his photography, I want to focus here on John as an educator, not just as a photographer.
It was my dream to attend to one of his workshops, but 9400km (≈ 5,840 miles) for someone who isn’t a huge fan of air travel + no direct flights available between Helsinki and Los Angeles, 17h of sitting in the plane somewhat raised the threshold for me. Last year the window of opportunity closed forever, as he joined his idols Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith and Robert Frank in the afterworld.
He was very open about his fondness for these three giants of photography and from what I understand, took much influence from them. I admire John for being able to put their ideals into a melting pot, diluting them into a coherent philosophy and a set of guidelines, that was possible to pass onto others in a distilled, systematic form. The systematc approach is important in order to realise the individual stepping stones and stages of developement of becoming a photographer. What are the basics? What do you need to practice before attempting the next thing? Once you’ve learned those things, what are the next steps? What are basic rules, values and ethics of street photography?
For example, he emphasised on multiple occasions, that without learning the ins and outs of your equipment (camera) it is impossible for any artistry to come out of it. How can you take photos if you don’t know how to use the camera? How would you be able to make art if you don’t know how to take photos? So first order of business → practice on the backyard first and when the camera becomes second nature, then consider hitting the streets. I can’t image anyone giving an actual performance on the violin before practicing first extensively. How would you be able to play the music if you don’t know how to play the violin? Isn’t it delightfully simple? You need to practise in order to get good. Simple fact, that often isn’t associated with photography, for some reason. Photography is often marketed with the idea, that you only need to buy a camera and start pressing buttons. Do you just walk into a music store, buy a violin and start playing? I think not.
In contrast, many so called content creators and/or photography tubers will, in the mean time, come up with empty promises of “This simple trick will instantly up your photography game.“ Seriously, that is nonsense. There is very little value in picking and choosing one random little trick here and there and marketing them as silver bullets. A kung-fu master would not teach you only a one kick as a trick to win a fight, but an entire fighting system instead.
I got the chance to exchange few messages with John online. Few years ago I wanted to reach out and tell him that his words alone, directly helped my photography tremendously. I was curious whether he was able to see his influence in my street photography works. The correspondence didn’t last long enough to find out about it, but I was still happy have the opportunity to thank him.
The reason I’m writing this now is to share his teachings. Many people are confused about what street photography really is. John, however, understood it deeply and, more importantly, he knew how to communicate that understanding. There are so much, too much, really bad street photography advice online and for someone getting into street photography, it can be overwhelming to filter out the bad sources, that are often made with the wrong, engagement or ego driven, narcissistic intentions. That is to say, people are usually after likes and followers rather than sharing legitimate information.
Lucky for us, John left behind great material for all of us to enjoy and to learn from. I became seriously interested in street photography around 2015 or 2016 and luckily I stumbled upon John Free’s videos quite early on. His mentality aligned with my latent ideals of street photography, so it was easy for me to gravitate towards his approaches.
John Free emphasised the right things for the right reasons. To get a taste of his wisdom, I hand-picked few of my favourite John Free videos from YouTube. There are several more of these, but these are the ones, that I still return to over and over again. If you are interested in street photography, I would highly recommend brewing a nice cup of coffee and listening to these words of wisdom.
