A London Street Photography Critique with Tarik Ahmet

In this episode, London street photographer Tarik Ahmet, of Oh Brother Creative, joins me to critique a set of reader-submitted street photos. We talk about framing, working a scene with patience, and photographing people wearing masks, and Tarik closes by walking through one of his own candid street portraits.

Find Tarik: https://www.instagram.com/photogbytarik/ https://www.oh-brother.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/ohbrocreative https://www.facebook.com/OhBrotherCreative/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvH4DYRnJibHELnh_wCpiIw

A London Street Photography Critique with Tarik Ahmet

In this episode, London street photographer Tarik Ahmet, of Oh Brother Creative, joins me to critique a set of reader-submitted street photos. We talk about framing, working a scene with patience, and photographing people wearing masks, and Tarik closes by walking through one of his own candid street portraits.

Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome back to the channel. Today I am here with Tarik, from Oh Brother Creative. Hello Tarik, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you very much for having me.

So the idea behind this is that I'm going to show you photos of our community of photographers who submitted for a photography challenge, and I would like you to look at those photos as if they were your own, and critique them as if they were your own, or maybe one of your clients. So if you can give us your best opinion.

Sure, I would be happy to do that, no problem at all.

Let's take a look at the first one.

@cmazmanian

Okay, okay, this picture is a beautiful picture, I mean it's pleasing to look at straight away, it kind of, I mean some sunsets are always going to be something nice to look at. If it was my image, I kind of, I would have liked to have had, because it looks like the boy's flying a kite, I'm assuming that's what's happening.

Yeah, probably.

I would have liked to have probably seen the string of the kite, I mean it's a subjective thing, and that's the thing with this sort of stuff, because somebody might like it because it looks like there's a bit of mystery behind it, with it just an object flying in the sky, but I think I would have liked a bit of context, with just a bit of the string showing, which is difficult, it's a thin wire and you're far away. And maybe on the right hand side of the picture, where it looks like you've got a little bit of telephone cable or something like that, I might have been tempted to just retouch that out, if that's a done thing or not, but I personally would have just cloned that out, so it feels like there's a little bit more symmetry in the image, it would have kind of framed your image from each side and just had the object in the middle. But otherwise I think it's a nice picture, I would have been pleased with that.

Maybe crop it a little bit in, to get rid of the wires?

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have, if I was going to crop anything it would just literally be that black block on the right hand side, I would have just brought in a little bit, but the two loose wires I would have just retouched them out, personally. I wouldn't have had a problem, I wouldn't have felt like I was cheating if I just retouched that, because if you cropped in any more to take in those cables as well, I feel like the image would have lost the framing, I think it would have just already punched in too much. And if you wanted it to look like that, then it should have been shot even closer, to show more detail, maybe a little bit of light wrap around on the boy or something like that, just to give it, I mean, that's how I would have liked it. So I feel like if it's gone wide and you want that framing of the houses, it needs to show the rooftops, to give it context.

As for the edit, would you maybe consider making it all black, leaving all the shadows, because we can still see part of the building, right, but in the exposure tab you can basically make it all disappear, to just make black silhouette, would you go for it, or do you like the details?

No, no, yeah, I think the person that's done this has been sympathetic to the shadows, and I think I would have probably done it like this as well, because I feel like sometimes it could be an easy way out, to just make all your silhouettes black, but if you get it right, like there's a little reflection off the window on the right, and a little reflection on what looks like a door on the left, I mean for me it's just giving it some texture, and it's giving it a little bit of shape, and it's giving it depth as well. The moment you lose those layers of reflections and light, I feel like it flattens the image down, so actually I quite like what they've done here, where they've left a little bit of reflection on the window on the right and the door on the left, I think it works quite well. I mean you can even, on my screen at the minute, you can see slight texture in the shadows at the bottom, I can live with that, I think it works.

All right, moving on to the next one.

@iam.ajji

I mean, the framing, I mean it's a nice picture to look at, but I'm not sure what I'm looking at with this image, that's my only issue. I kind of wish there was maybe a fisherman on the boat behind, or somebody diving off the pier in the background, or two people sitting on the blue chairs, but outside of that, I don't know what's going on, so I'm looking around the picture, and it's a nice, I don't know what's going on, I don't know what I'm meant to be looking at, it's not really doing it for me too much. It's not a bad picture, maybe if this picture was in a set of images, I don't know where this picture's been taken exactly, but if it's wherever they've traveled to, if there was a set of images and you're building up a story, this might be, I mean I would have enjoyed to see different aspects, of fishermen or something, maybe following this guy more, and then this would be just a picture of him, which we would already know about, right.

Yeah, exactly.

I think as a documentary picture it works, because they've shot this at, I don't know, f/11 or higher, it's got so much depth in it, my eye doesn't know what it's meant to be looking at. If it was isolated, and you went, okay, they've shot this f/4 or f/2.8, and it's just isolated the subject on the right, and so I know that's what I'm meant to be looking at, because there's something, I mean it's always beautiful to look at hands and stuff like that, but this guy's hand, for instance, isn't telling me enough of a story for it to be really appreciated. So yeah, I mean it's not a bad picture, but it's just not working hard enough, I don't think.

Moving on to the next one.

@chetanclicks

Yeah, this is cool, isn't it, I mean it's the sort of picture that you kind of want in your own set of photos, so I think this is great. I don't love the edit on it, but that's subjective and personal, so that doesn't make it a good or bad picture, if it was my picture I would have edited it slightly differently.

You mean the colors?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what I mean, I feel like it's not punchy enough, but that's just my subjective opinion, so it doesn't make it a brilliant picture. I mean, to be able to time it, if that was just timed intentionally, I think the photographer, whoever took this picture, is a kind of clever street photographer that knows what he's kind of looking for when he's going for his images. Yeah, I think that's a really smart image, I mean, if I had to go to make it even better, if the boy had something in his hand, he was carrying something, then it would have just elevated it to even more, but it's already there, it's already an image that I'd go, yeah, brilliant street photography. So yeah, hats off to whoever captured this, beautiful.

Moving on to the next one.

@dansuzukiphotography

I mean, it's, I like this picture, the edit's pretty nice as well, but I don't know what the photographer wants us to look at with this, the layers, I can see they're going for some layers, the focus is on the back, the eye contact is with the guy on the left, so for me I probably would have wanted more in focus, or the guy on the left in focus, if it's one of those pictures where he's caught him by surprise. In an image like this, I kind of wish that the guy wasn't wearing a mask, because it just gives a little bit more of an element of seeing his expression. But masks in pictures, they're in a lot of street photography pictures, and whether people have got an opinion as to if they spoil pictures or not, what do you think about that?

I don't like masks in an image, I think it makes street photography a little bit more tricky, but I don't think it's made it impossible, it gives us an element of time, like we all know when we look at the image, it's going to be less timeless, I think, with the mask, because you're going to know that they were taken at some point between 2019 and 2022, perhaps, but it doesn't trouble me too much. But if you can nail a street photo and people have got masks on, and you still feel connection to it, because there's the right amount of eye contact and the right amount of layers, then you've done a really good job.

So, but with this image, I mean I like it, I just wish that he was in focus, because he's quite soft, in focus or not, because at the minute the only thing that's catching my eye is that girl's arm in the background, wearing the fluffy jumper. She's the highlight in the image, when you're looking at a black and white photo and you're looking at the highlight, the highlight should be the most interesting part of the image, that's what's being highlighted in the photo. In a minute there's just some steam and a hand, I don't know what a hand's doing, it's nearly there, but I just feel like if this person waited out at this spot a bit longer, I feel like maybe they did, maybe they didn't. If it was me, I would have waited out and seen if I could have got perhaps somebody walking out of that entrance on the right, so I've kind of got a face on the right hand side facing the left, then have somebody from the left, so they'd be the frames of the image, and then something in the middle, so I'm kind of framing up with people on either side of the image, and then that subject in the middle which is the highlight, that would be what I'd be hoping to get from this image, because there's obviously a stream of light coming from the left-hand side, because this is hitting the wood, so whoever walks, the people on the right hand side, like the lady and the young girl, the backs of their heads are being lit, but if somebody was walking in the opposite direction, there would have been a beautiful bit of light on their face, so that would have been a nice nudge towards looking at that part of the image.

Yeah, maybe there's the nature of the queue, or the line, how people were moving, so maybe it wasn't possible.

But yeah, definitely catching someone coming from the other side would make it lit much better than this, right?

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, all right, let's take a look at this one.

Alex Kroeger

It's a nice photo, it's framed well, it's a street photo, but it's not really working hard enough for me. I feel like I would have wanted someone in that left-hand side of the image, so you've got the two girls on the right, and I would have liked somebody right in front of me eating an ice cream or something like that, and shooting past them to give them context, because this could just be a family photo, like that could just be my girlfriend and her friends, sort of thing, on a ride. So it's framed well, there's an element of symmetry, with the blue object on the right and the blue object on the left, they're kind of cropped fairly symmetrically, so that works, but there's not a whole lot more going on in this photo, apart from two people having fun. So as a documentary photo it works well again, and if this was a sequence, because you're story building, then this photo is a nice photo, but in terms of it being a standalone street photo, I'm not sure, I think it's just missing that one thing that makes it feel like a considered street photo.

And the thought was, when I saw this, I thought maybe the photographer could tilt the camera a little more up, to get rid of the negative space at the bottom, and include the top of the thing.

Yeah, to not crop it, but I don't know if it would mess up the whole composition of the rest of the things which are kind of overlapping.

Yeah, the arms.

Yeah, the composition, I mean the composition's nice, and it's a pleasing image to look at, so it's not a bad photo, it's pleasing to look at, and I think there's such a fine line between an image that's pleasing and an image that's just a strong street photo, and I think this is a pleasing image, and it's nice to look at, and, you know, if you're in a fish and chip shop by the seaside, this would be the sort of image that would look great on the wall. So it's a good image, so whoever took this image, I want to think they did take a good image, it's a good image, but is it working enough for a street photo? I don't think it is.

Perfect, thank you.

No worries. Let's take a look at this one.

@ivars.di

I don't know about this image, I mean I know what they're going for, I'm guilty of it, so I'm not going to sit here and say that I haven't. Take a mystery photo that's got other people's work or art in it, sometimes I feel like it's a bit of a cheap shot, and I'm not saying this person is a cheater, I've done this, I've got photos in my own set that turned out to be, a graffiti artist connected with me, saying, oh hey, I've seen you've got one of my bits of work in it, and I was like, oh great, I feel like it really works with the image that I was taking. I get why people do it, but if you're going to do it, I feel like it has to have context, the photo has to, whatever the piece of art is, it needs to be brought into the image as part of the layering of the image. I'm just making this up, for instance, but somebody might be holding up a sandwich while they're sorting something out, and then the picture behind them might be like a dog in a picture, an advert for dog food or something, and it might just line up with the dog biting the sandwich, that works, because you're bringing in the layers of the background. But this isn't really doing much in that sense, so I kind of feel like the silhouette should have just been in front of the archway, in order to create a silhouette frame with the archway, hope that makes sense, the moment, explained it. I just feel like it's not doing anything apart from the picture in the background.

Yeah, so yeah, I'm not sure about this one, unfortunately.

Let's take a look at the next one.

Martin's photo

It's missing something, and I think what is missing for me is the person being right in there. In order for me to really appreciate what's going on here, I feel like they should have got close up, to see the people's faces, or lose the church at the top, I don't think you need the church, because you've got that cross on the right, so if you want the church, then you're taking the landscape photo, but if this is meant to be telling me a story, telling the street photo, I feel like they needed to have got in there, to show more of what's going on. If it were me, I would have wanted to get round into the crowd and get on my knees and take the photo, to give me the essence of, I want to see the perspective of what people are seeing. I probably would have come around the other side and photographed the priest, what's he got in his hands, I don't know, through the people, I would have used the people as layers of frames, trying to get some of the rosary beads, I would have just spent, you know, 15 minutes just moving around that crowd, to see if I could get the picture, wanted to get nice and low, what are those people seeing, I even want to see what the people are seeing, or I want to see what the priest is seeing, but at the minute I've only seen what a passerby's seeing, which anybody can see, there's probably hundreds of people walking past this spot. So you've taken a documentary picture here, you've just documented people in a frame, so for me I would have said I would have wanted to get right in there, got around the other side, shooting past somebody's hands while they're holding the rosary beads, and then you've got the priest's face in the background, just something to build up some layers and tell me a bit of a story that something's going on. I still don't know what's going on right now, and if you went around the other side and got in there in the mix, you still might not have known what's going on, but I feel like it would have made a more interesting image, and it would have felt like I was really there, rather than just passing by and looking over and then carrying on, I wanted to feel like I'm actually in there.

Okay, so that's interesting, that's interesting advice, thank you.

Yeah, no worries.

@stefankurzeja

Next one, I mean I would have wanted somebody on the bike, that would have been my thing. It's a nicely framed picture, I love the colors, I like that they've got the tag on the right hand side, they've managed to keep that, it's all beautifully square and symmetrical. I probably would have had, rather not had the bike in it, with this picture, because I feel like the bike isn't really, I mean it's the pop of color, which is cool, it's nice to have a little pop of color, but I feel like I'm enjoying the symmetry of the building, like the flats, I think they are, I'm enjoying that more, so I feel like the bike, I don't need the bike there. But if I was going to have the bike there, I feel like I would have wanted somebody on the bike, cycling past, and even more so if they turned and looked at the camera, so you lined it up perfectly with that door, it's difficult, and you've got to wait it out, I think, but an image like this needs patience, which, I say that, I'm not a very patient street photographer, it's one of my downfalls, I just move quickly, I've had my headphones on and I just walk around constantly, and sometimes I wait at a spot, but some street photographers wait two hours at the same spot until they get the image they want, whereas I'm like, five minutes, run and gun. I shoot quickly, because I don't spray and pray, I don't just photograph and hope that it all works out, I'm considered, but because I mostly want people in my pictures, I'll shoot quickly, so I have to move in, take a picture, then move out again, before people have got a chance to grab my arm and ask me what I'm up to. So I think I've got used to shooting quickly, because of my documentary background, and just trying not to distract people. But a picture like this, it's good, but I just wish the person taking it just waited it out a little bit longer, I mean 15 minutes at this spot, and they would have had some great options, with moments that they could have captured.

Yeah, but it's a nice bit. Maybe just waiting for the postman to come back, right?

Yeah, because if this is like a postcard, he probably went out to work, or something.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah, and I can see it.

I don't know what country that's taken in, mind you.

Yeah, me neither.

Yeah, me neither.

Yeah, but the person that took this picture, if they live in the country and they're able to go back to this spot, I think they should go back to this spot, and they should get this picture, and work this spot, and try and get the best image they can, because it's a really nice find, it's not every day that you'll pass a wall like this and go, look at that. I think they can work this spot and get some nice options from it.

@jul_captures

Okay, so let's take a look at this one, this time with a person on a bike. This is a cool picture, this is cool, I mean this is a brilliant picture, and they're experimenting, and they're working a space. I love this picture, this is one of those photos that some people might go, street photography, the thing I love about it is that there's such a spectrum of what's called a street photo, like this person, if their style is all this sort of thing, and they've got a consistent portfolio of work, or gallery of work that looks like this, then I think they are onto something stunning, they should have done this really well. I never take images like this, and I see them and go, oh yeah, that's cool, isn't it, it really sticks out, and it's just a cool picture to look at, you could have that on your wall, screen saver, I like it, it's great.

Yeah, really nice, makes you wonder how it was taken, if it was shot from a train, or from a car, or if it was just a simple panning shot with, maybe, a moving background or something.

Yeah, you're right, you're right, if the person's fairly in focus, they look to me, it looks like they've shot a really low shutter speed, and it looks like they've panned with the bike, because the floors are really blurry, like the pavement and curb and stuff like that. So for me, there's a little bit of his belt or waistline that's kind of fairly in focus, so perhaps they've panned with it, to me, but it's nice, it's a really nice shot.

All right, moving on to the next one.

@ayham_mn_hon

Yeah, this is cool, isn't it, you can't kind of knock a shot like this, this is a great shot. If the guy on the right was maybe a tiny bit higher, and I could see all of his head, I feel like that's a bit too obvious, maybe direct, so I actually quite like how it's just got half his head, I think it actually worked a bit more for me, it adds that little element of mystery to it.

I suppose from a design perspective, would you like to have something in the sky, maybe like more, or birds or something?

Yeah, do you know, I was thinking that, I mean it could have had some birds there, the negative space works, if this was shot for commercial use, you've got loads of negative space here for a copy to go on top of, so it works, it works really well. I mean, I maybe would have cropped in ever so slightly, to get rid of that half a disc on the right hand side, it's kind of, it's not in, it's not out, so I kind of just think you could have just got rid of that, maybe it's not in the picture enough to create any kind of framing, so maybe, actually maybe it's helping it a little bit, because it's creating a little bit of a frame, it's creating a little bit of a separate little frame for the head on the right, so I don't know, it doesn't bother me that much, actually. If I was editing this picture, I might have cropped it in and cropped it out, and it would have taken me a bit of time to decide, but it works, I think it's a nice picture, it's cool.

All right, yeah, cool picture.

All right, moving on.

@faltintas

Yeah, this is a cool picture, this would work really well in a set of images, I hope the person that photographed this image has gone out and said, I'm going to document this market and get lots of different faces and different people, because I can imagine this image sitting in a body of ten images from this day. But it's cool, there's a nice bit, I like the light that's coming down on the right hand side, actually, I mean I know it's behind him, or maybe behind him-ish, not totally behind him, but I quite like the light that's going on, it makes his belly look really big, but not in a bad way, not in an insulting way, but just like that body shape, it's just making, how it's up in that, what's going on. And the finger in the background, pointing at his mask, if he didn't have his mask on, then it would look like his finger was going off his nose, that might have been funnier, but if you're into that sort of street photo. But yeah, I like it, it's not groundbreaking street photo, but, like the framing, like the guy with the checkered shirt on the left, I kind of wish he was more, so he wasn't breaking the shape of the guy, the subject of the image, in a way, to be honest with you. I wonder if I would have preferred it if the arm pointed up at the face wasn't there, it actually just isolated, this image, it looks a little bit like just an odd candid portrait, the buildings do a really good job of framing, they've got leading lines down to the subject in the middle, he shot it quite shallow, so you've got a nice drop off on the background, I quite like that. There's a guy on the right pulling a bag, and he's got like a shell suit, so it looks like, I don't know, I do like it, but actually I don't know if I like the man pointing up at the face, I'm not sure if it's adding to the picture, or actually making it more distracting, for me to just enjoy this guy with his hat, caught in the middle there, was he, I don't really know what he's waiting for, so he's giving me some questions to think about while I'm looking at this picture, has he got his friend or his wife or something waiting there, or is someone crossing the road, or was he just standing there, in his own world, for a few minutes, and then, this person was walking down through the market, I thought, there's a guy standing right in front of me, and I'll just take his picture before I move around him, sort of thing. So I think that's what I like the idea on this as well, actually.

All right, so I'm fifty-fifty with this one, okay, thank you. So moving on to the more slightly artistic one, I would say, maybe more abstract one.

@clairelions

Yeah, this is really nice as well, this is a little bit like that guy on a bicycle, it's very creative and abstract, and it's hard to take photos like this, because I think sometimes people look at this and go, I had nothing else to photograph, so I just started shooting abstract stuff, just manual focused, out of focus stuff, but this, there's a lot going on in this picture, and I think it's a really nice photo, actually. I like that there's all the scrap, and you can see all the scratches on the screen, I like these two bits of, I don't know what they are, even like tape or metal or something, but they're doing such a nice job of making sure you look in the middle of the picture, and you can see that there's that girl, I think it's a girl in the background.

Yeah, right.

I think the black lines are just doing such a good job of making sure you look at that, and you don't need to see our eyes looking at you, you don't need to see that much detail, but you can see enough that she's there, so I really like this picture.

Would you like to see a different subject in the frame, maybe like on the left side, maybe someone walking, or do you think this is enough?

I think so, I was thinking about that just now, because there's a lot of wire that's almost, I don't think it's blown out, but it could be blown out on the left, so there's some blown out stuff, but I think there's enough dark elements on the right, top right hand side of this image, that's creating a gradient down to the bottom left of the image, so for me it's working really well, it's just kind of leading my eye, I started looking at the bottom left, and it's just my eyes naturally gone from the higher to the dark part of the picture, and there's enough, the middle of the image there, where the blue is kind of a little bit light, there's a bit of green and gray in it, and then it leads up, and you've got the red dot behind, must be a car in the background or something like that, there's enough of a flow in this image that it leads me to look at her face, and I think the fact that she's got a really nice bit of light on the right hand side of her face, it's good portrait light, really, so for me you can see enough, that's what's giving this element of shape on her face, I really like it, I'd have that on my wall, no problem at all.

Yeah, it's a lovely picture. All right, let's take a look at this one.

Foreign_Ant_20

I know that's Millennium Bridge, I think, in London, isn't it?

I guess so, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's a nice, if it is Millennium Bridge, which I think it is, then yeah, it's a cool spot.

It's a man in a hat, we all, as street photographers, we all like to get, I don't know, how about umbrellas, right?

Yeah, yeah, umbrellas.

I feel like umbrellas are a slightly different thing, because you can get more opportunity to get under them and around them, and if there's one umbrella, then you know there's many, so you can wait at a spot and you can get blocked with a hat, they're quite difficult to get, not everyone's wearing a cool hat like that. So I like it, it's not, I feel like it needs to be straightened up a bit. As a standalone picture, it's all right, I don't want to knock the person taking this picture, it's a cool picture, it's just a man in a hat. To me, it's got the best film vibe, like I'm not feeling, like a movie vibe, this could be like a frame of a movie, like, I don't know, maybe like a closing shot of a gentleman looking into the future, or into the city, or something like that.

Yeah, I mean it's fairly cinematic. I mean perhaps, a lot of my street photos are taken pretty much everything in landscape, is there a particular reason for that?

I think because our field of view is naturally landscape, we see things wider, so when I capture photos, I like to be able to, so whoever's looking at the photo, I like to help them see what I'm seeing, and be, as if I want to bring them into the photograph with me, and I feel like it's harder to do with portrait, because we don't have, like, horse blinkers on, where we just see straight, unless it's an image that has got something to see above, like for instance that church image earlier, if you really wanted to see the church, and that was an important part of the photograph, then you can take it in portrait, because then you're showing how grand the space is. But with this, I feel like perhaps I would have liked to have seen just some negative space on the left, it doesn't have to be anybody there, but if I just saw it, because that leading line is so, I think that's what's actually troubling with this image, if that pillar wasn't there, I think I would have enjoyed this image more, because I would have seen his hands in the gloves, so it would have given me a little bit more context, of who, would have allowed me to character-build a little bit in my head, I would have just been able to build up a character profile looking at this picture, I'm wondering who he is. But the barrier is quite distracting, it's just right there, so if the camera was just turned the other way, or if they had, I don't know what they took this with, maybe an 85 or something like that, but if they had a 50, if they'd shot with a telephoto lens with street photography, a 35, they might have struggled to get, be expending on how close they got. But anyway, if they were landscape, and I just saw that leading line going down, I would have known that he's on a bridge, and he's walking, and he's on his own, and it's a little bit mysterious and cinematic, like you're saying, I think I would have enjoyed the image more. Okay, so yeah, so it's not, it's nearly there, but not quite there for me.

Okay, let's take a look at the last one.

@photogbytarik

So, that's my photo, I believe?

Oh no... yeah.

Oh, you know that. So you want me to critique my own photo? All right, okay, all right. So this image, this was a hard image to get, there was a big shard of light, and I only had about, I had about half an hour before my train arrived, I just finished a job, shooting and capturing an event, in Charing Cross in London, I had some lunch, and I was like, I missed my first train, so I've got to wait for my next one, and it was just a real strong stream of light blasting down the pavement, and the part that I wanted to photograph, just the right person or the right scenario, wasn't, just didn't happen. And then there was a second spot, it was right outside a phone shop, and there was a big cable, with an advertising sign, so I was struggling to get the composition I wanted there, and as well as that, because there were so many buses and cars in the background, they were quite difficult to work with, because I didn't want them to be a distraction, I just wanted the shard of light to just hit, kind of just like a candid, so this girl was walking towards me, and I think the thing that caught my eye was her jacket, it was quite bright, and it was mid-winter, so it was quite cold, but it was just a sunny day in London, so she approached me, and I remember her walking towards me, and I shot, shot, shot, and then as she was moving around me, I kind of just panned to get this shot. I like this photo, and that's why it's in my set, I can't, I think it's on Instagram, and perhaps on our website, I'm not sure.

You could probably tell me, because you've grabbed it off there.

But I do like this photo, because it feels like it's just a candid portrait, and I like it, and I like the light on her face, and I like what she's wearing. I wish the bus in the background was not there, I wish the bus wasn't there, if I could have waited it out, but then if the bus wasn't there, then she wouldn't have been there, this is the whole point, isn't it, if I waited for somebody else to come into the frame, then they wouldn't have been the right person for the frame. So it's not a great street photo, and somebody else might look at this and go, it's just a picture of somebody walking down the street, but I think, because it's a big part of my photography, I find that I really enjoy taking candid street portraits, and I think if she looked at me, I wouldn't have enjoyed this picture, I like the fact that she's got no idea that I've ever taken her picture, I feel like I've taken a moment of this person, and every time I look at this picture, I'm wondering what she's thinking about, and I think that's the thing I enjoy most about taking candid street portraits, because we all do it, you're walking down the road, she could be thinking about a million different things, is she having a good day, is she having a bad day, is she happy, is she sad, does she need a hug, does she not need a hug, right, that sort of thing, you just don't know what somebody feels like at any point in time, and these images that I capture, when they're candid street portraits, just remind me of the human side of the photography. So yeah, I don't know if you want me to say anything else about it, but that's my photo, isn't it.

Closing

Okay, so thank you, it was nice to talk to you, and some great advice.

Yeah, I hope so, I hope so, there were some really good photos there, and I think, share a picture in that round, they're working hard with their street photos, and I think if people, everybody, there was no photo in there that made me go, why are they even bothering, everybody there is considering their images they're taking, some of them are brilliant, and some of them just need a little nudge to just elevate them to a level, I think.

All right, so thank you, Tarik, for joining me today, and also, have a great day.

Thank you very much, you too, thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, bye, cheers.