Street Photography

There are a lot of photo walks in the Toronto area. Basically it’s a twice-a-month walk around Toronto neighbourhoods with 20 to 30 of your newest photography friends with camera in hand. Check the groups out on Facebook at The Toronto Photo Walk and The Toronto Film Shooters. I’ve been out with both groups and generally it’s a Saturday morning of coffee, fellowship, photography and finally lunch. What’s so tough about that?

Photo walks are very safe and comfortable ways of starting to do street photography where you might want to start people – strangers – into your images.

Along with photo walks another really easy way to get into street photography is showup with your camera at any of Toronto’s many street festivals. At so many of these events the participants are expecting photographers. For example, in this image these four participants in the Caribbean Festival parade were more than happy to stop and pose for this image.

But there’s more to street photography and one of the better YouTube instructors Peter Forsgard has a very good video “Why Street Photography Feels Impossible (7 Fixes That Actually Work)”.

Remember it’s not about gear but it’s all about the photographer and the camera he or she brings with them that day. One tip that Peter offers is bring a small camera with either a fixed lens or bring one camera with just one prime lens. This helps narrowing down the complexity of gear that often gets in the way of street photography.