Go on a photography walk

“To get some great shots, you need to pay attention to what’s going on around you. We’re so often in a rush getting from A-B, that we can often find we’ve reached our destination on auto-pilot. The street photography walk meant that we slowed down, observing our surroundings and the people about us. You also have to be fluid when it comes to street photography. You can’t control what’s happening. There were several times I thought I’d lined up a great shot, only for someone to walk infront of the camera, or for people to do something unexpectedly. As we were so focused on the scenes before us, I didn’t look back at what I’d captured until the end of the session. Quickly scrolling through the pictures on the back of the camera, I felt excited to look at them on a bigger screen when I got home to see what images I’d got.”

“Whilst I feel fairly comfortable with my camera, I did feel a little uneasy at first taking pictures of strangers. I’m more than happy to take pictures of scenes, but proactively pointing my lens at people who were obliviously going about their business felt intrusive. However, Paula put me at ease. With her years of experience, she soon helped me to feel more comfortable capturing interesting individuals and moments as they happened. We’re so used to seeing people taking pictures in the street with their mobile phones, that I felt very conspicuous with a camera. Using a mobile for the session might have helped me to blend in, but I wanted to practice and learn with my camera.”

“We split into smaller groups of three and just went around taking photos together. It did get very busy and thus difficult to keep track of each other – but mostly it made it much more difficult to take photos because you’d always have someone walking through your shot! The theme was a lot of fun to work with though and I noticed some of the most common things done are photos, just sitting off on side alleys exhausted, and perusing the different market goods specifically targeting the many tourists who come through. I found that getting photos with a lot of people in it was often difficult because it was not possible to tell exactly what I was trying to express in the photo. At that point I switched to mostly close-up photos of certain people or groups. I did miss two shots I really liked: a woman trying to figure out what the different coins she had were worth and a couple both downing large glasses of wine – stems straight up in the air.”