Shoot from the hip: Yes or no?

The trend started in the late 80s, when the first generation of "posh" AF compact cameras hit the market. A handful of street-savvy shooters, most notably Magnum photographer Ken Heyman, started to hold their autofocus compact cameras in the palm of the right hand, placing it low, high or off to the side to act as a "third eye". The resulting images were intriguing.

Now we're in the midst of the digital age, where a growing number of compact digital cameras are focusing faster and have almost no lag time, allowing them to be more useful to street photographers. I just posted about this phenomenon in this article for the Adorama Learning Center.

One of the compact camera features that intrigues me as a street photographer is the flip-up LCD screen. This could let you shoot waist-level without giving up control over the placement of the edges of the photo. While most street shooters of yore preferred eye-level viewfinder cameras, some (Harry Callahan, Vivian Maier) would on occasion pick up a Twin-Lens Reflex and shoot from the waist. The flip-up LCD may be a reasonable alternative for those who bemoan the lack of eye-level viewfinders on most compact cameras but don't want to look like a tourist with a camera when doing street photography.

What do you think: Do you shoot from the hip, or avoid it even with a flip-up screen?