I’m not a street photographer. Part of it is that I live in the middle of nowhere and we don’t really have streets. I was in Paris at the weekend to visit my parents, so I experimented a bit.
I’ll show you some of the photos I took over the weekend. To take the photos, I used a mix of phone, Canon 5DII+Canon 28mm, and Sony RX100III @24mmeq, depending on what was practical.
I decided to take colour photos as much as possible. Not uniquely, but as a mix. It’s a thing I haven’t done much of lately, so it was going to be a change. As I’m intentional in how I do things, i.e. I only see what I’m looking for, which makes me mediocre at street photography, I had to make that decision before hand.
And as I’m not used to street photography, I’ll explain my photos. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.
The first thing that surprised me is how colourful things are in Paris. In our tiny villages, things tend to be very samey and not very colourful: stone colours on the walls, terracotta tiles on roofs, asphalt on the roads, and green or yellow in the fields. We don’t really have splashes of different colours and read is nearly unheard of, apart from poppy fields.
Just from the train journey, colours were so vivid:
Why I took this photo:
I couldn’t resist taking a photo of that guy sleeping a few seats away.
Why I took this photo:
I like train journeys. I strongly dislike not having control over the times (once you book your tickets, you can’t travel whenever you want) and it stresses me. But once on the train, it’s so much less stressful than driving or flying.
Why I took this photo:
When in Paris, you have to do the cliche things. Like having breakfast in the street with croissants.
Why I took this photo:
When you stay in Paris, you spend a lot of time in the subway. I don’t like the bus. That dates back to when I was a kid and they could be very humid and gross in the winter. The metro has always appeared cleaner to me (but really isn’t). There too, look at the colours:
So many colours next to each other.
Why I took this photo:
Of course, I couldn’t resist taking a few monochrome photos. This one somehow reminded me of 70s NY subway photos. Just a bit less edgy.
Why I took the photo:
I prefer this one.
Why I took this photo:
How could I not take this photo? I’m obsessed with trains and trams coming into the frame.
Why I took this photo:
I’ve always liked metro entrances and exits.
Why I took this photo:
By now, you’ll have noticed that I like to frame things.
Why I took this photo:
Once in Paris, we walked nearly everywhere (high step count!). I often go via Beaubourg because it’s a place with lots of things happening and I know it well.
I had to wait a while to have people in the right place. It’s surprising how often people stop walking when they see you waiting with a camera to avoid entering your frame. Don’t they understand I want people in my frame? The pigeon was a bonus and I had to try several times to have it in exactly the right spot.
Why I took this photo:
This was the other shot I took first as fallback, but it’s not as I was hoping for.
Here and there, I would find interesting colours.
Why I took this photo:
These rental electric bicycles are everywhere (in Oslo it’s electric scooters). I had to wait a good while to have a person past in the middle of the street walk and be in the gap.
Why I took this photo:
As I was trying street photography and I’m still more used to street landscapes, a lot of my photos weren’t about people. The one thing I don’t like about this photo is that the verticals aren’t vertical: I was using a fixed 28mm lens and didn’t have the room to widen the shot to later fix the perspective.
Why I took this photo:
Another street. Look at those colours.
Why I took this photo:
Still some street landscapes, but trying to see the details.
Why I took this photo:
I was particularly attracted to red splashes.
Why I took this photo:
This fire engine stopped while I was having breakfast (see above), so I jumped and took this photo.
Why I took this photo:
More amazing colours. I took many of this shot because I wanted only one person in it and I wanted them in the right place (not in front of the flowers). It’s surprising how much people are aware that you’re taking photos and they try (nicely) to stay out of your way.
Why I took this photo:
I tried to focus on people more than usual. I waited for this one a while. I wanted the subjects to be in the right place (e.g. not overlapping with a lamp post) and I wanted some colours.
Why I took this photo:
I saw the waiter cross the intersection nearly running. I just had time to raise my camera, match his speed, focus, and push the trigger as he was walking past me (it was taken at 28mm). All in a fraction of a second. But I like the result. Not so much the lamp post sticking out of his head, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
Why I took this photo:
I also got interested in reflections. But I didn’t have a polariser, so they weren’t easy to control.
Why I took this photo:
In shop windows.
Why I took this photo:
Of course, I was still interested in shapes and textures.
Why I took this photo:
These come from the Louis Vuitton Foundation building where I visited a David Hockney retrospective.
Why I took this photo:
The whole structure was fascinating.
Why I took this photo:
Some cute details around the corner.
Why I took this photo:
This is the kind of photography I’m used to.
Why I took this photo:
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