It is almost a year ago when I was thinking about my next step in my creative part of my life. I am moving from sound to images. Audio and music is an essential part of my life. I have a hard time to put the same amount of energy into music production. I was losing the fun, and it was something I pushed myself to do it. I am very critical in my work, and I was losing my quality and the connections in the music business. It was time to move on and find something where I can leverage my creativity to a new platform. It was my girlfriend who told me to grab a camera because she had seen pictures of me. These pictures were from holidays. I love to grab the camera during a holiday. When I got home, the camera went in a drawer for another year. It was time to take the camera out of my drawer and start shooting. Questions raised about what I want to capture? Do I have the technical skills? Do I know how a camera works? Do have the eyes to see a frame for a good picture? I had no idea. One thing I know for sure, doing nothing won't make you better. This blog is about a retrospect of my first year of photography and what I have learned. I must say, it is quite challenging to write about what you have learned. I do read a lot, watch movies on youtube and try to learn myself skills while I am on the street. I not only do street photography. I also capture a lot of pictures when I with my family, on the beach during sunset, when I am on holiday. And I must say, the quality of my photographs is getting better and better. Besides taking pictures, editing is also an essential role in getting the picture the way you want to have it. I will share my sources were I get my knowledge and inspiration.    

Why did I choose for Street photography

I took my Canon 350D from my drawer, looked to it. I thought, what do I want to capture. Different scenarios went through my mind. Architecture, People, Portrait, nature, details or products. Architecture felt quite dull; I would like to do something with people, Portrait not enough experience at the moment, I love Urban, Nature is not my thing. I want to capture life, People and I love Urban. Maybe street Photography is subject to start. So let's begin!

My first street photography experience (5 tips)

It was in the beautiful city of Utrecht in the center of The Netherlands. Together with my Canon 350D and my prime lens, I went from my hotel to the city center. I think one of my first shots; a guy was standing against concrete blocks. I thought this could be an excellent shot. I pointed my camera towards him and "click," with the known click of a DSRL camera. It was on a quiet street, so the guy noticed me of taking a picture of him. He said: "are you taking a picture of me." So what to do now:

• Always be honest
• Show the person the picture you have taken
• Aks, the person if you need to remove it
• If yes, remove it in front of his eye so that the person can trust you.
• Don't feel offended, move on and find your next subject or composition.

What happened in my case? Initially, The guy was irritated, so I started the conversation that I did take a picture and why I took it. I showed him the photo, and asked directly, should I remove it? You might think that he wanted to remove it. On the contrary, he didn't. He even told me he is a photographer too and it is a piece of art. So I still have my first Street photography photo.

Street photography is simple, right?

When choosing to focus on street photography, I thought; Capturing and documenting life is never dull and should not be that difficult. You don't need to set up your studio with lights. Just walk around on the streets and capture what is passing your eye and it is a possible tactic. However, I found out, just shooting pictures of random events on the streets is just a picture everybody can make. I have shot many of these images to show myself; this is not the way to go. How do I get breathtaking photos that I can share and where people say, this is a great photo! My first thoughts are to get closer to people. You can use a large zoom lens and capture people from a distance. It is an option, but your depth of field is terrible because zooming means flatten the depth of field of an image. My Prima lens was 50mm with subtle zooming. I do have a Sigma 18 - 250 Zoom lens. Not very smart to use this lens if you want to capture the street life of that particular moment. With such a big lens, people are feeling watched. Getting closer to people and taking a photo of a stranger was a challenge. How do you get closer to a person without being the busybody? Now it is getting hard and is street photography not a natural photography style at all. Visiting Utrecht was my first experience with street photography. The question, how do I get better at capturing images and getting enough self-confidence to get closer to people? I want to share some tips learned from my own experience.

• Use a small camera to stay undercover while you are practicing capturing your first photos.
• Use a camera that is silent (Like a system camera) to keep undercover when you are in quiet area's.
• Research the different styles and compositions of street photography. More tips will follow.
• Choose a subject or style with your hart, where you have enough confidence to do it. You have enough time to learn.
• If you have found a right spot, stay there for a specific time to capture as many photos. Most of your images will fail. Shoot 100, and you have maybe two that are perfect.
• Inform yourself about a street photography course. I am sure that it will kick-start your street photography skills and have fun being on the street with your camera

Next Steps (1 tip for a street photography workshop)

After my visit to Utrecht and my first experience with street photography, I needed two things to do. 1. Buying myself a camera that is small, silent and fast. 2. find a street photography course to get up to speed faster. Finding the right camera with no experience was very though. Google is your best friend, and I started to read with my search query "best street photography camera." A website like this helped me choose: Best street photography cameras Leica was way beyond my budget, so I prefer for the FujiFilm X100 series. If your budget is between 1000 to 1500 Euro, these series cameras are the best for street and other types too of course. I have bought the latest model, X100F. This post on streetsnappers.com is about a guy (Brian Lloyd Duckett) abonded Leica for Fujifilm I have this camera for about a year and I love it! Why?

• Resolution
• Film simulation
• What you see is what you get
  • Direct response in your view finder when changing settings
• fixed lens
  • zooming with your legs
  • you will learn the limitations between what you see and what the camera can do for you. I think only our mind is the limitation of the camera. You don't waste time thinking about the lens you should use.
• Not only for street, also landscape and portrait proof.
• I don't have to always shoot in RAW. JPEG quality is amazing.

If your budget allows buying this camera. Don't hesitate and go to your shop nearby right now! Let me share you a review from Ian MacDonald  X100F Review 2. Now I have the perfect camera, let's learn some skills from an experienced street photographer. I researched on Google. You get much information. I had no idea who could give me a right class. So let me help you. For my international followers, Ian MacDonald is a fantastic street photographer and even got asked by Fujifilm to be a Fujifilm photographer. Before I found his website, I had never heard from him. I read some of his blogs and checked his schedule for a course. And I got lucky because he had planned a workshop in Amsterdam. If you want to know more about this workshop? Please read my blog about my experience of Ian his workshop. My Ian MacDonald street photography workshop experience This course gave me basic knowledge and enough confidence to capture strangers. What did I learn: - Compositions - Using light and how to see good light - The Moment - The Subject After a year of street photography, I can see myself growing in my skills and how I can see interesting images much faster. I am also very quick to see and capture a sudden moment with a fascinating subject, lights, and composition. Like these photos: