Street photography diary — 1/2025
First outing of the season. Easter Friday. The long winter is finally behind and I want to capture life on the streets.
The weather forecast for the day was initially excellent, but during the last minute it changed for the worst. The morning was overcast and the lighting didn’t look too promising. I almost changed my plans about going. It was also much chillier than forecasted, around 10 degrees celcius, instead of the promised 20c. A summery weather like that would have, no-doubt, lured the masses to the streets on a bank holiday like this, so the conditions would have been pretty much perfect.
At around 15.00 the sun finally broke out and I felt the urge to grab my camera and head to the city. In fact, the lighting turned out to be excellent: thin, misty cloud cover that diffused the sunlight into a soft glow. I took the train to Helsinki and by the time of the arrival, the sun was shining from a low angle, as it was slowly starting to prepare to set. It was chilly though, but there were still plenty of people around.
I had only one goal in mind for this outing: to kickstart the season. I was prepared to accept not finding anything particular to photograph and in fact I didn’t. This was a practise run.
I was very active in street photography from around 2017 right until the pandemic. I finally returned to it last year, but I wish I would have been able to get more keepers. Therefore I’ve been waiting for the spring. For me, it marks the beginning of another season. I have a pretty specific vision in mind, and it doesn’t involve any ice and snow, which is why I’m not, at least for now, interested in street photography during the winter.
Heading into the evening, the lighting improved by the minute. It was very bright but soft. A beautiful sea mist rolled into the land creating a painterly atmospheric perspective, where the objects further away fades into lighter shades. It would have looked amazing on black and white film, which was just the thing loaded to my camera. I took only my 50mm lens. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. My camera of choice was Leica M4. I had a light meter too, for just in case, but I was planning to sunny 16 all the way.
I ended up strolling for about an hour or maybe hour and a half, which is not much for a street photography outing. It takes patience and might require hours and hours of wandering about. I didn’t end up firing the shutter, not even once, even though the light was perfect. There just weren’t much going on and I faced the typical challenges. I wanted to photograph people and even though the street were semi-lively, I just didn’t find the right kind of people and they weren’t exactly doing much. Most people were just walking around, wearing identical black winter coats. Nothing terribly picturesque or stylish. A warmer day will change peoples behaviour and they start to dress more nicely, do something a bit more recreational and socialise more. I anticipated this, which is why I was 80% sure that I wasn’t going to find much on this outing. It would have been nice, but I had just one goal, to get things rolling again.
I knew I would be rusty and I wanted to familiarize myself once again to the whole thing. I was worried that maybe I would feel uncomfortable pointing my camera to people and looking them through the viewfinder, but most of my efforts went into just scouting area, exploring and inspecting so I didn’t get to point the camera too much.
I made a classic mistake and didn’t bring my jacket, so I walked fast in order to keep warm. There was a cold, moist breeze coming from the sea. The sun eventually disappeared behind the rooftops, casting the entire area to the shadows. It was time to head back home. No new shots, but it doesn’t matter. The season has now officially started.
