Harold Feinstein's best photograph: Coney Island in 1949 I was born in Coney Island. I like to think I fell out of the womb on to the fun park's giant Parachute Jump while eating a Nathan's hot dog. I took this on the beach there back in 1949 when I was 18. In those days, you didn't really see people taking photographs. I remember these kids calling out: "Hey, mister - take our picture!" I was never one to refuse. When people yell something like that, they usually make the picture just by wanting it. This was not an untypical Coney Island scene. It was a fun place to hang out, lose your inhibitions and do what comes naturally. The weather was sunny, warm enough for a swim in the ocean, and there was always a lot of shouting and noise. You could hear people screaming as they hit the first drop on the rollercoaster - but there was a quietness to it all, too, as it was so continuous. These kids were probably in high school, spending their spare time hanging out on street corners in Brooklyn when they weren't here. It was just after the second world war, so there was still rationing and food stamps, but their aim was to have a good time one way or another. People like this shot because they feel a jolt of recognition: they relate to being young, being in love, hanging out with lots of friends. I never ran into them again, though in the 1980s I got a call from the woman's nephew. "She's even more beautiful now," he said. Coney Island was my Treasure Island. Mostly, I worked so quickly I didn't see the details of a photograph until it was printed. In this one, I hadn't noticed the girl's arm around the guy, or the freckles on the other guy's back. There were so many things to shoot, the question was not how to take a good picture, but how not to miss one. You had Italians, Puerto Ricans, people from all over the world, and you didn't have to pay to go there - it was truly a people's place. I loved riding the Cyclone rollercoaster. I'd get a seat right at the front. Then I'd stand up while going down the steepest drop, turn round, and shoot whoever was behind me screaming. I began photographing in 1946. Before that, I was a painter and drawer, with my mother and father's support. They were a bit pissed when I went into photography. They thought photographers were guys who took pictures at weddings. I was drawn to street photography because there are pictures everywhere there: a woman holding a dog, a baby screaming to be put in a pram, kids playing punchball, stores with huge barrels of kosher pickles outside. I wanted to photograph life, and here it was. When I was drafted during the Korean war, I asked to be a photographer, but they stuck me in the infantry. It was a lucky escape - because if I'd been an official photographer, I would have had to shoot official occasions. Being in the infantry meant I could photograph life among the GIs and in Korea as I saw it. I teach now, and the advice I give my students is this: when your jaw drops, click the shutter. My jaw dropped all the time on Coney Island. There were so many things to shoot ... Harold Feinstein Born: Coney Island, New York, 1939. Studied: No formal training. Influences: W Eugene Smith, Henri Cartier-Bresson. High: A retrospective of my work at the Lumiere Brothers Centre in Moscow this year. Just for its scope and size. Low: When I turned down having my work shown at the Family of Man show at Moma in 1955. At the time, I believed that a museum should only show work because it is great, not because it fits into a theme. That exhibition became the most important show in the history of photography. Top tip: Don't resist anything, even if it's corny or something you've never seen before.