Street Photography
Street Photography
While my 'work' is all about weddings, street photography is a massive influence and source of inspiration, and has become my hobby and a huge passion! If you ask Google (or ChatGPT now I guess) Street photography is a genre of photography that captures candid, everyday life in public places, often focusing on unposed moments and interactions between people and their surroundings. While it is frequently associated with urban scenes, the practice can occur anywhere public, such as parks, beaches, or events, and is characterised by its documentary, and artistic approach.
When you think about making photos in the context of that description, street photography is the perfect 'training ground' for a documentary wedding photographer. The primary goal of street photography is capturing genuine, unscripted moments as they happen, often without the subjects' knowledge. With a strong focus on people, their behavior, and the human stories that can be found in public spaces, street photographers look for moments that stand out from the 'norm', and all this further demonstrates why this genre of photography is the ideal way to hone your eye, which is almost more important that getting the photo. You have to be able to see the frame/potential/moment first, and trust me, it's not easy. It is also the best place to hone skills like composition, moment capture and storytelling.
As a working professional photographer, it's also vitally important for me to create for myself as much as I do for my clients. In the post-pandemic chaos, I had a couple of years of not picking up a camera unless it was for work, and honestly, my work suffered as a result. So now, I prioritise some time every month to go walkabout with my cameras (I'll carry digital and film with me) and make some photos just for me. So here are a few of my favourites from some of those wanders...