People approaching and passing me

  (click on photos to enlarge)

When I’m out wandering through a city with my camera, I’ll often look for busy sidewalks or other pedestrian thoroughfares. What I want are people walking, running, biking, or skating towards me. My goal is to photograph the subject(s) as they are about to pass me, are passing me, or have just passed me.

I’ll commonly preset the camera settings. That way, as a subject approaches, everything on the camera is ready to go. These are my typical settings, though they really depend on what I’ll be photographing, the specific focal length of my lens, how far I'm standing from the subject, and how fast they are moving:

ISO - 100
Shutter speed - 1/15th to 1/60th second
Aperture - whatever f-stop necessary for a proper exposure
Focal length of lens - somewhere in the wide-angle range
Focus - manually focused at the approximate distance where I expect the subject to be when I press the shutter button

For this sort of shots, I’m panning my camera as I shoot, so that it’s moving at the same speed as the subject. That makes them less blurry than if I had been holding the camera completely still. But since the background and foreground are not moving, they become blurry. That helps give a sense of movement to the moving subject as well as hide distracting clutter that may be in the background and/or foreground.

When panning the camera, I’m not looking through the viewfinder or at the camera’s monitor. I don’t want the subject to know they are being photographed. The camera remains where I’ve been carrying it - usually at mid-chest level. My camera and chest are actually moving together. At the same time, I’m tilting the camera up or down slightly, attempting to get the best framing possible. I do all this nonchalantly, as though I’m merely looking around. Unfortunately, since I cannot see how the subject is being framed, I'll sometimes miss part or all of the subject.

Every so often, instead of panning, I’ll keep my camera pointed in one direction and wait for people to come towards me (depending on where I am, this can be quite productive or a futile waste of time). Since I'm not moving, the area in front of and behind them will not be blurry. So, to emphasize the subject's movement, I'll pick a shutter speed that will make them at least somewhat blurry.
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The first seven pictures below illustrate the first method above. The last two images show the second method mentioned. By the way, keep an eye on the shadows. I think some are really interesting and make the photos more dynamic.

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