Street Portraits versus Candid Portraits

Street portraits are a powerful way of capturing the stories of the city. It takes guts to stop a total stranger and ask to take their photo. We’ve been shooting lots of videos recently of how to shoot street portraits.

Asked Street Portrait

The posed portraits can be less authentic if the subject is uncomfortable. So you need to work hard to make them feel safe and open up a bit.

It’s great fun to get out and meet new people. It feels more like design research, urban anthropology or investigative journalism than photography. I am naturally a bit shy, so the exercise of approaching random strangers is a real adrenaline buzz.

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Best places for London street photography

One of the main things that drew me to street photography was my fascination with the wonderful characters and personalities of London. There are plenty of location guides and guides to the best locations for street photography. But almost all of them are about the best streets to photograph not the best place to find people to photograph.

London Photography Locations

The best places to shoot street photography in London are based on the best places to find the people of London that you want to shoot.

As you know, street photography is about telling stories, spotting the small human things in life and photographing people. So I’ve dug back through the London photo walks I’ve done with David Gibson and others to find the best routes in London for visitors and locals.

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