The case for not asking
The accepted answer's position is that street photography does not come from permission. Once someone knows they are being photographed, whatever they were doing has stopped, and what you get instead is a person being photographed. It is not an argument that asking is wrong — the same answer allows that asking produces good portraits — but that it produces a different photograph from the one the question was about.
The case for talking to people
- Be straightforward about who you are, and give people a way to check and to receive the picture afterwards.
- Build rapport first: ask what they are doing, or find something genuine to remark on, and offer to send them the photograph.
- One contributor described photographing a neighbour's house at night, then knocking on the door afterwards to explain and offer the image — approaching after rather than before.
How people got comfortable doing it
- Start where cameras are expected. Public events were recommended because people there already anticipate being photographed.
- Work in crowds, where a camera is less conspicuous and turning away is easy.
- Move at whatever pace suits your temperament — the thread was explicit that how fast you progress depends on personality rather than technique.
- One answer added the sensible warning that not every public gathering is a good place to practise this.
What the thread does not cover
- The law, which differs substantially by country and governs both photographing people in public and publishing the result.
- Commercial use, which is a separate question from whether taking the photograph was acceptable.
- The answers describe practice among photographers, not legal advice, and should be read that way.