31/08/2026
The people I used to leave out.
I’ve been looking through some old photos recently and noticed again something I may have shared before, but never did this kind of research on my archives.
I used to photograph places very differently. A market stall, a narrow street, a cathedral roof. I would notice the details, the architecture, the beautiful little things, but somehow people were often left out more often than not.
I remember travelling through Vienna, Prague and Berlin about ten years ago and being told that I didn’t quite seem like myself when I was taking photographs. I think I was trying to find something more in the places I was visiting, without really knowing what that meant.
Looking at these photographs now, I find it interesting to put some of them side by side. The same place, or almost the same area, but with a different focus. The lettuces on a market stall, or the woman selling them. A passageway in Vienna, or the woman walking through it. The details of a cathedral, or two people talking outside another church.
Neither photograph is better. They just tell me something different.
I still hesitate when photographing strangers. But I’m much more interested in leaving them in the frame now.
Tags: travel photography, street photography, storytelling photography, people photography
