The lines of Leeds

Street shooting in Leeds city centre

Shooting around a city always throws up some interesting situations to photograph, sometimes things stand out but other times the scenes take a little teasing out. I would like to say that the cities give different results but the truth of the matter is that it’s my perception that changes. Sometimes I hit the streets in a particular mind set and depending on this will dictate how receptive I am to the scenes around me. Leeds is a city that can throw me in a couple of directions; sometimes I can shoot and get a few results where as other times I can come away with nothing. Today I have come away with a few images which is always better than nothing but on reflection I always want to be more articulated with some of the images that I take. The trick is to keep shooting and keep practicing, so I continue to shoot and I’m always looking for that great image.

Taking a walk

I think that one of the most important things with street photography is just to get out and taking a walk. Things will happen around you or you will stumble upon scenes or situations that spark some sort of interest. I like to do this whenever I can, I don’t always find something that interests me, I think it depends how you are thinking about a situation or how receptive you are on a particular day.  I don’t always know what’s going to happen or what I’m going to find but that’s all part of the fun of street photography. There’s always that possibly that you’re going to find something that’s new and sets your thinking down a completely unexpected path. I normally like to shoot around places where there are a few people winding about, lately I have become more interest in places busier but when I last walked out and shot these images below I was without that audience to interact with. I still found these little scenes that interested me. I didn’t particularly think too much about these images while I was working other than I enjoyed shooting them and satisfied that creative process.

Freeman street

I had an interesting conversation with a friend today. Let me set the scene; we drove down a street that I hadn’t seen before and I was amazed at the amount that was on offer to photograph. It was one of those places where every few meters there was that magic where things were happening and teeming with life, even on this rainy day. To me it was like an epicentre of street scenes and I said how amazing and rich the street was. Sadly I was driving, I didn’t have time to park up walk and shoot the area.

My friend said that there seemed to be lots to photograph around this street that would make the place look bad, in the context that it would interest me.  I found this comment intriguing and replied with; how can I make the place look bad? Surely the place is ‘bad’ or undesirable and the photograph is a representation of what the place is, therefore the place ‘looks bad’ and I’m just capturing what I see. And this got me thinking too; everything is subjective and the place ‘looking bad’ is more of a comment from a perspective which as we know can vastly vary. 

I guess this leads me to the question, Am I making the places that I photograph look bad or is this just from a certain perspective. I don’t know, I mean I’m not intentionally going out thinking I want to take images of subjects that make them look bad or negative. I photograph things that interest me, yes I can show a frame of a situation but that image is of something real that is actually happening. I’m not making a judgement on that, I’m leaving that to the viewer.