a very realistic day of street photography

Head to https://squarespace.com/mikechudley to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code MIKECHUDLEY

Sign up to The Focal Point here ▼
Join 1,000+ email subscribers who receive something more personal from me including my street photography, YouTube journey, highlights of others’ work, recent inspirations, and noteworthy topics.

✉️ Signup is free: https://www.mikechudley.com/thefocalpoint

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikechudley/
Website: https://www.mikechudley.com

🛒 SHOP MY PRODUCTS: https://www.mikechudley.com/shop
🎵 Epidemic Sound – Where I get all my music for YouTube videos: https://bit.ly/3lflRC6

Gear I use:
Leica Q2 – https://amzn.to/3IZmRIh
Canon R6 – https://amzn.to/3nbgs1O
Fujifilm X100V – https://amzn.to/3FfQ2Cl
GoPro Hero 10 – https://amzn.to/3HQ4ZN2
SD Card – https://amzn.to/3HQrfq8
Headphones – https://amzn.to/3nbJ7nC
External Hard Drive – https://amzn.to/3HNUwS8
Vlogging Microphone – https://amzn.to/3tl0UMP
Professional Microphone – https://amzn.to/3zJQqaW
Viewsonic Monitor – https://amzn.to/3HUEm9W

this video is sponsored by Squarespace today I wanted to show you a as realistic as possible day of street photography I want to commentate as the video goes on and explain my thought process what I was looking for how I was thinking why I didn’t or did like each photograph from a total of 300 plus raw files I finished the day on around 20 that I think are worth showing you at the minimum and then I think there’s maybe one or two that are half decent I wonder if you can guess as the video goes on which ones I actually do like like first thing I like to do once I’m off the train and in London is prep my camera I’m just checking nothing is being pocket dialed if you know what I mean at the moment I like to run with an auto ISO setup and auto shut speed with a minimum shut speed of 1 500 per second and then change the f- stop accordingly to the light and each scene typically though I shoot between F4 and f8 also oddly enough since using m1p I’ve been loving having my profile in black and white so anytime I use the LCD screen it’s in in high contrast [Music] monochrome all right then first throt of the day coming up don’t expect anything [Music] good years ago I would come to this spot and be buzzing about taking a lookup shot with all the cool skyscrapers nowadays I care very little about it the skyscrapers are still cool though obviously but whereas photography is concerned this is just a bit generic and interests me less than it used to it’s funny how our tastes change and evolve over time still I took a few basic architectural shots to get warmed up and press the shutter button right here I’m taking notes of the title and concept of this video itself for those interested I use notion for all my ideas potential titles scripts and blog posts anything that comes to mind when I’m on the move gets jotted in here I’ve walked down the street many times but never really noticed the white tree at the very least I do like the tree amongst the church backdrop but nothing else about the scene is very exciting again I’m just pressing the shutter button to slowly get myself into flow and warm [Music] up when it’s still early on in the day I find myself chimping almost every shot even though I’ve set the camera up earlier I just want to check I’m not doing anything obviously wrong and that my eye and Camera are doing what I want them to do I guess it’s just part of the warming up process I wouldn’t want to go into a session cold shooting everything without checking a single thing especially on shots like that where I’ve just adjusted the shoter speed and f- stop quite dramatically I think it’s worth checking that I’m doing the right thing talking about this photo specifically then I would have much preferred to get this shot of the guy facing me and not leaving the frame so that’s pretty disappointing and I was too focused on planning the action itself with the slow shot speed that I missed the right moment sometimes it just goes like [Applause] that trying some more slow shut speed stuff here I didn’t get anything decent I rarely shoot on the Underground to be fair but sometimes I get the second train instead of the first one available so I can play around for 5 minutes and see if I catch anything interesting but for the most part I haven’t taken a single memorable image down there maybe I just need to try harder I don’t know goodon right here I was told to wait with all these other people as they were filming something for TV and they didn’t want people walking past I thought this could have been a good opportunity for something unique a possible behind the scenes photo but I saw Absolut absolutely nothing I also have no idea what they were filming for something boring [Music] obviously it’s always the small dogs that are the yappi right I do like this picture in terms of drama you can see the energy from the loud dog and the contrast of boredom in the other dog the wonky composition also enhances that I think but it’s still not a great photo and if I wasn’t filming this video I would probably just delete it if we are keeping this video as an honest and realistic representation of my day there’s an incredible amount of walking and not taking any pictures which means there’s a lot of footage of nothing happening so I’ll save you from that boredom and only show you the highlights if that’s what you want to call them so as you watch this video take into consideration the hours of walking where I don’t see anything that’s just how street photography goes most of the time [Music] here’s a pretty busy Crossing with a lot of people and the light was also decent so all the signs are telling me to hover around here for a little bit but I’m torn between always keeping it moving and waiting around at places over time I’ve come to prefer the always moving method so even though this spot seemed like it had potential at this time I didn’t really fancy waiting around for long so that that’s my thought process on that I think I’ve come to prefer always keep it moving so I think this scene was somewhat interesting and it did catch my eye probably because of the sheer amount of color the old phone box sat in front of the construction fencing is odd there’s lots of vertical and horizontal lines I think the term for this is visual language the shape and color of the phone box kind of matches or complements its surroundings I got two images here first one with the gentleman on his phone bit Naf and then a single vertical frame of the phone box I think this one is a little bit better oh no would you look at that another coffee just magically appeared in my hands how strange nah but seriously this is my first ice drink of the year so the idea that the weather might be slowly getting better is a nice thing to think [Music] about so this one might be a little bit weird to explain but noticed there was a huge shadow on the side of a white lur in the background and I was thinking if I compose it well enough there might be an illusion of depth I don’t want it to be so obvious that it’s a lri mix that with some subjects in the foreground it could be interesting just for context I think it would be interesting if you saw the raw file and in my opinion the crop really makes the image better everything on the left especially is pointless and doesn’t add anything so let’s just crop on the two people who look cool in the light but also make use of the cool tree and the shadow behind them it’s not too shabby something I found handy to try and keep a lookout for is the odd things out going by that thought you tend to capture things that don’t happen all the time if something is unusual then it might stand out not always of course but right here this person is covering themselves from the Sun with their hoodie it’s just slightly out of place compared to everyone else so that’s what caught my eye so I do think that this would typically get deleted if I wasn’t making this video and explaining myself but something I do like is how the shadow on the wall of somebody else walking by and the hoodie subject sort of mimic shapes I really am clutching at straws by explaining myself and it isn’t that interesting but at least you can hear my thought process before we carry on with the video I’d like to just take a moment to share with you today’s sponsor Squarespace I’ve been using Squarespace long before before they even became sponsors of this Channel and if you’re a photographer who wants to look more professional and take your business to a new level I cannot recommend them enough I’ve been using Squarespace as my go-to platform for hosting my photography portfolio selling digital and physical products writing blogs and even a Weekly Newsletter the whole process of setting up and managing this website has been super straightforward if you want to see more photographs that I’ve taken in London I’ve created a page full of my favorites on my website and that really did take me minutes to set it up so why not at least start a free trial and see what you think after that when you’re ready to launch go to squarespace.com slik chudley to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain now let’s get back to the video again this is something slightly out of place these Street entertainers seem to have come across a problem and security were involved I got there just as the dispute was kind of over and they all shook hands I do like the timing on this one he’s going to shake hands one way but looking the other the gesture of the timing is cool then the two Gold Street entertainers are split up by the two security guards essentially you’ve got two pairs of characters and one more subject on the right looking over we’ve managed to catch a little story this one isn’t [Music] terrible [Music] like I mentioned earlier there’s a lot of walking and a lot of not taking pictures it’s all unpredictable and if nothing catches your eye nothing catches your eye what can you do street photography is just constantly Split Second decisions wandering around all day casually looking and mostly nothing then once in a while it’s go go go then back to casually strolling the pacing throughout a day of street photography can be really out of place okay so I think this one here is pretty cool but I wasn’t recording on the GoPro so I’ll just explain it there are two identical bikes waiting to cross the road and I saw the word look now the thing that’s appealing here is the two o’s matching the two round Wheels it’s as simple as that but I think the colors are nice I don’t really know what to say other than that I just thought it was a cool little scene it’s not super meaningful and deep but it’s aesthetic so I kind of like it as I was walking down oxa street I bumped into this smartly dressed gentleman I attempted to take a candid image here but nothing came of it he then noticed me anyway and we proceeded to have a pretty Pleasant interaction yeah yeah portrait smoke portrait that’s great that’s great sir thank you have a nice day [Music] can buy get do and making buy 250 56 with digital of course you can just like take a b and check why used two poundland film 1 2 three six rolls of color I would say probably 200 well it’s always good to catch up with Elliot and back to shooting this week in selfes the shop window display was a real life one I guess it’s called not sure how you would word that but there was people in the windows instead of mannequins again something a little out the ordinary so I tried to grab a few [Music] frames it was around 2: or 3:00 p.m. at this point and there was a great patch of light hit in this area it was also here that I recognized a photograph taken by my mate Kenny there’s some text on the window display saying when the Sun Shines on you and Kenny managed to snap a great shot with some Shadows on the wall using Kenny as my inspiration for this I wanted to see what I could come up with as [Music] well all right that one’s just for fun let’s try this [Music] seriously [Music] and bingo I really like this one the messaging on the display matching well with the gesture of the passer by it’s so fun to find two separate elements and bring them together to tell a story that is what street photography is all [Music] about I do wonder if we will see photos like this in years to come and be fascinated by our behavior these sort of images are instantly not Timeless and I think that’s a good thing as well as trying to take photos that are Timeless the phone the posing for Instagram that whole moment is an early 21st century type of thing to be doing I wonder how that moment will compare in the [Music] future here’s something I was drawn to but didn’t walk away with anything the light the pop of Blue Sky in the background the green grass all of it seemed Pleasant and then the pigeons could make for a subject if they did anything interesting which they didn’t but just letting you know what I was [Music] thinking okay so obviously you can see how nice the light down this street is and my Approach for this kind of situation is to have the oncoming subjects facing the light but have the background in the shadows if you notice how the light is hitting mostly the right hand side of the street where I’m stood and the left hand side is in the shadow this means people are highlighted by the Sun but the background is super dark and therefore they stand out way more here’s a photo I got from this scene to explain I like the two matching gestures but also how each person in the frame is placed onto the darker background so they stand out like I explained there’s also a consistent Touch of red throughout the image which makes it a little bit more appealing this isn’t going to win any awards but it’s still fun to [Music] [Music] shoot and then right here we have our final image of the day I noticed A well-dressed man clutching his news paper and I missed the top of his head this is also why I want to get a 28 [Music] mm at the end of this street photography day it was also the monthly photo book and prints and Pints Meetup that we do if you’ve seen this on my videos before there’s a group of us in London that meet up once a month and share books discuss photography swap prints and just geek out on the whole thing it’s pretty sick it’s very wholesome that we’ve managed to come together as a group and just do this regularly so that is what you’re seeing here we’ve also created an Instagram account for everyone involved in this group so if you’re interested in seeing London Street photography Through The Eyes of some London photographers then check out the Instagram page all right let’s wrap this up let’s discuss briefly my thoughts here are the 20ish photographs you’ve seen in this video most of them are a bit naff and some of them are okay here are the ones I’ve selected that I do like that I think are okay and then this is my final select I do think this is pretty cool and I’m pleased I got [Music] [Music] it [Music]