Street Photography

What Documentary Photography Taught Me About Shooting With Intention (Thanks to Tish Murtha)
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What Documentary Photography Taught Me About Shooting With Intention (Thanks to Tish Murtha)

There’s a difference between taking pictures of people and actually photographing them. I spent years on the lifestyle and travel side of things before I really felt that distinction in my chest. I could frame a shot, nail the exposure, find the light. But something was missing from a lot of my work, and I couldn’t name it until I started paying closer attention to photographers who built their careers on truth rather than aesthetics.

How Sean Tucker's Street Photography Philosophy Changed the Way I See My Own City
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How Sean Tucker's Street Photography Philosophy Changed the Way I See My Own City

Street photography stopped me cold for years. Not because I lacked gear or technical skill, but because I’d built this rigid picture in my head of what it was supposed to look like. Someone brave and a little confrontational, pointing a lens at strangers on a busy corner, negotiating consent or chaos. That wasn’t me. I do a solo photo walk every Sunday morning in Seattle, and for the longest time I’d walk right past perfectly interesting scenes because they didn’t match the “street photography” label I thought I needed to earn first.

How to Stop Copying Other Photographers and Actually Find Your Own Style
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How to Stop Copying Other Photographers and Actually Find Your Own Style

Every Sunday morning I do a photo walk. No agenda, no client, no mood board. Just me, whatever camera I grab off the shelf, and whatever Seattle throws at me. And for the longest time, I kept coming home with images that looked like someone else made them. Not bad photos, but not mine either. I could tell I was unconsciously copying the photographers I admired most, and I had no real framework for breaking out of that.

Street Photography Mindset: The Practical Habits That Actually Keep You Shooting
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Street Photography Mindset: The Practical Habits That Actually Keep You Shooting

Every Sunday morning I do a photo walk. No agenda, no client, no shot list. Just me, my camera, and whatever Seattle decides to look like that week. It sounds peaceful, and it is now. But for a long time, those walks felt like a grind. I’d come home with a memory card full of mediocre frames and a nagging feeling that I was doing something wrong. The problem wasn’t technical.

How to Turn a Personal Photography Project Into a Published Book (Lessons From Joshua K. Jackson)
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How to Turn a Personal Photography Project Into a Published Book (Lessons From Joshua K. Jackson)

Every photographer I know has a folder somewhere titled something like “project idea” or “maybe someday.” Mine has lived on my desktop for three years. The problem isn’t motivation. It’s not even time. It’s that most of us don’t have a clear framework for how a personal project actually goes from a vague creative impulse to something finished, published, and in someone else’s hands. That’s exactly why I kept coming back to this conversation between Sean Tucker and photographer Joshua K.

Shoot Lighter, See Fresher: Street Photography Lessons from Sean Tucker's X100 Workflow
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Shoot Lighter, See Fresher: Street Photography Lessons from Sean Tucker's X100 Workflow

Every Sunday morning I take a photo walk around Seattle. No agenda, no shot list. Just me, a camera, and whatever the city decides to show up as that week. It sounds idyllic, and mostly it is, but for a long time I kept making the same mistake: I’d haul my full kit, second-guess every shot because the stakes felt too high, and come home with technically fine images that felt completely lifeless.

So You Want to Photograph the Hard Stories: A Beginner's Guide to Documentary and Conflict Photography
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So You Want to Photograph the Hard Stories: A Beginner's Guide to Documentary and Conflict Photography

There’s a category of photography I’ve always admired from a respectful distance. Not landscape work, not portraiture. I mean the photographers who walk into the hardest places in the world and come back with images that make you stop scrolling and actually feel something. I’ve spent a lot of time on the technical side of photography, teaching exposure triangles and composition rules, but I’ll be honest with you: the “why do you do this” question is one I find far more interesting than the “how do you do this” question.

Why I Always Have a Compact Camera in My Pocket (And How Sean Tucker Convinced Me to Stop Making Excuses)
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Why I Always Have a Compact Camera in My Pocket (And How Sean Tucker Convinced Me to Stop Making Excuses)

Every Sunday morning I do a photo walk. Rain, shine, or the kind of Seattle gray that makes you question your life choices. The ritual is the point. But I’ll be honest with you — there have been plenty of Sundays where I nearly talked myself out of going because I didn’t feel like hauling my whole kit. And on those days, the camera that saves the walk is always the small one stuffed into my jacket pocket.

You Don't Need a Story: How to Make Compelling Photos from Pure Shape, Light, and Color
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You Don't Need a Story: How to Make Compelling Photos from Pure Shape, Light, and Color

Every Sunday morning I’m out walking before most of my neighborhood has had coffee, and for a long time I felt a low-level guilt about my favorite shots from those walks. No people. No dramatic moment. Just a patch of light cutting across a concrete wall, or the geometry of a fire escape against a pale sky. Were those even “real” photographs? Was I doing it wrong? Turns out, no. And I needed someone else to articulate why before I fully believed it.

How Many Great Photos Should You Actually Expect? Sean Tucker's Layering Method Explained
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How Many Great Photos Should You Actually Expect? Sean Tucker's Layering Method Explained

Every Sunday morning I do a photo walk. Rain, shine, Seattle gray — doesn’t matter. I’m out the door with coffee and a camera. And for years, I’d come home frustrated if I didn’t have at least one image I felt proud of. I’d scroll through 200 frames, find maybe three that were decent, and wonder what I was doing wrong. It took me a long time to realize that frustration wasn’t a skill problem.

What the Ricoh GR3x Taught Me About Buying a Camera That Actually Fits Your Life
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What the Ricoh GR3x Taught Me About Buying a Camera That Actually Fits Your Life

There’s a camera sitting on my nightstand right now. Not in a bag, not on a shelf — on my nightstand, because it’s small enough that grabbing it on a Sunday morning photo walk feels like reaching for my keys. That’s not an accident. That’s design intentionality, and it’s something I’ve spent years chasing in gear. So when I came across Sean Tucker’s deep-dive into the Ricoh GR3x, I watched it twice.

How to Actually Approach Strangers for Portraits (A Street Photographer's Honest Breakdown)
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How to Actually Approach Strangers for Portraits (A Street Photographer's Honest Breakdown)

Every Sunday morning I do a photo walk through my neighborhood in Seattle. I’ve been doing it for years. And for years I would come home with beautiful shots of storefronts, fog rolling off the water, the occasional dog trotting past. Almost never a person. Not a real portrait, anyway. Nothing where I looked someone in the eye and asked if I could photograph them. The opportunity was always there. The nerve, less so.