Great London Street Photography locations

Southbank

There’s no doubt that London is a great city, it ranks alongside other global cities like New York, Paris, Tokyo etc. It’s where I live with my family and also where I do most of my work.

The thing about living in a city like London is, it’s easy to take much of it for granted. When you see the same views on a regular basis it’s easy to become immune to their charms, and there have often been times when I’ve found myself getting frustrated with tourists stopping in the middle of busy pavements to admire the views and take pictures with their mobile phones. But then I’m reminded that people come from all over the world just to see these views that are so familiar to me and I make a renewed effort to see the city with fresh eyes. That’s often something I tell people on the Street Photography Workshops I run - try to see the world as if it’s all new to you and you’re seeing it for the first time. That’s also why, on those workshops I often find myself getting quite excited about scenes that are actually very familiar to me. If I have a camera with me, even though I’ve been there hundreds of times before, I’ll still take loads of pictures as if it’s my first time there. In a way, that speaks to the very essence of Street Photography - you never know what will unfold in front of your lens and the mundane or familiar surroundings of a well known location can often be transformed into something remarkable for a split second. The key is to be in synch with your surroundings and immerse yourself in the moment.

Millenium Bridge

Bank of England

Tate Modern

London is a big city and there are many areas I have yet to explore, but there are always a few favourite areas that I’m drawn to as they offer such rich potential for street photography. I tend towards black and white in my street photography as I find the timeless quality of monochrome resonates with the urban tones of the city. I especially love the high contrast light which provides rich black shadows on a bright sunny day. Of course I also enjoy colour too and some scenes look better in that way without a doubt. Nevertheless, I’m always drawn to what I see as the honesty of black and white, especially within the context of a simple, uncluttered scene, often with a single figure somewhere in the frame.

More London

More London

One New Change

Here are some of the areas I regularly visit for Street Photography, with a map below showing a suggested route that will take in some of them.

Royal Festival Hall and the Southbank

Tate Modern Turbine Hall

Millennium Bridge

Borough Market

Fenchurch Street to St. Mary Axe and the area around the Lloyds Building

Bank of England and the Royal Exchange

Brick Lane

Kings Cross and St. Pancras Station

One New Change

More London

If you want to join me on one a street photography walk, a group workshop or a one-to-one Street Photography session, please get in touch.

Fenchurch Street

St. Mary Axe

Food Photography on location

Selection of Food photos shot on location

Exposure Triangle Explained

I’ve been working as a full time freelance photographer for many years now and like many other self employed creatives I’ve experienced ups as well as downs. When the work is steadily flowing in, it’s easy to believe that it won’t ever slow down, but when the weeks go by with little or no work, it’s hard to believe that it will ever pick up again.

I learned early on that in order to bridge those gaps, I needed to supplement my income during those quiet times. So I decided to start teaching photography. And it wasn’t long before I found I really enjoyed sharing my knowledge and passion and also that I was actually quite good at it.

Alongside my regular work as a photographer, I now teach through a few well known and established photography schools in London as well as under my own name, and I’m proud of the many positive reviews I receive, you can read some of them here.

I’m lucky to meet many different people through the various workshops I offer, but I’m often struck by how many people working as photographers, often in a part time or semi professional capacity still don’t fully understand some of the most fundamental principles of photographic technique, especially when it comes to manual exposure. There must come a time in people’s career progression when they feel embarrassed to admit they don’t understand something they should have learned a long time ago and as a result end up relying on the semi, or even fully automatic modes of their cameras more often than not.

It’s astonishing how many people are charging for their work, even earning a fairly decent income from it, without knowing some of the most basic stuff! I don’t hold that against them and when I’m teaching I remind people there’s no such thing as a stupid question; after all, if you don’t know something, it’s better to ask than to carry on fumbling around in the dark, pretending to know what you’re doing. I certainly don’t know everything and don’t claim to. Nobody does, we’re all learning and there’s always something new to be discovered. However, I firmly believe that anyone working as a photographer should know the fundamental techniques of how to achieve accurate exposures!

With this in mind, and after being encouraged by a few of my students to share some of my teaching online, here’s a quick section of voiced over video from one of my Keynote presentations, explaining the exposure triangle (when teaching in person, I go through it much more slowly while also explaining the controls on the camera).

If you’ve ever struggled with the exposure triangle, I hope you find this helpful.

If you’re interested in learning exposure or any other elements of photography in greater depth, have a look at the workshops I offer or or if you want 1-2-1 personal tuition on any specific area of photography, get in touch to see how I can help you become a better photographer.