My year in Street Photography. Defining moments and lessons

December 2024

Blog #10

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Looking back on 2024

As 2024 is nearing its end I sit and reflect back on the year which has had one of biggest defining moment for me as a street photographer and my street photography journey.

In May 2024 I made my most expensive and most influential decision since I started to do Street photography almost nine years ago.

I can’t believe it’s been almost 9 years .. it unfathomable to be honest.

2024 has been a year filled with excessive levels of street photography, creative pursuits and tons of learning especially when it came to film street photography.

I’ve always liked a good challenge and film or analog street photography gave me just that.

Some of highlight has been bulk loading my own film, scanning and developing black and white film at home.

I mention all these analog activities because they are part of the surrounding activities that makes to so much fun to be a film shooting.

I control almost every aspect of my Street photography - from making the photographs to standing with the film strip to editing them digitally.

This is the ultimate creation and expression of my art.

Ok not to sound overly sentimental, but it’s a big deal how much I manged to learn this year.

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THAT defining moment

Since I purchased the Leica M6 and ventured into film Street photography I haven’t looked back .. not once.

I only moved forward with so much curiosity and excitement as a kid on Christmas Eve.

Most of all - the journey so far has felt so natural and easy. As if I was meant to be on this analog path all along.

I have to say this was a turning point for me even though I did realise the impact it would have on me.

I’ve had a few of these defining moments during the last 9 years but none where I had to learn so much as fast I did and with so much enthusiasm.

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A few setbacks

As blissful the whole analog adventure has been so far there were also a few setbacks and a few annoyances that I had to deal with along the way.

The limitations of film are very real. Coming from shooting mainly digital Street photography background was a bit of a shock to the system.

What I mean is that in many ways film is very different than digital street photography. Not only mindset that needs to be “reset” when picking up a film camera.

First of all a lot of us interested in film photography tend to romanticise it and look at it from a nostalgic point of view.

I sure did.

The limitation I’ve experienced was that at times I was stuck with a roll of film and until I finished it I couldn’t shoot some days where a 100 or 200 iso roll was just not ideal for the light conditions.

I wouldn’t or couldn’t just replace that roll. Practically it would cost a lot of money - so wasting a roll of film or the frames left were not an option - at least an option I didn’t want to have.

The second limitation was the fixed ISO. There were so many times I wished I could just increase the iso like on digital.

But I couldn’t - again technically it is doable through pushing or pulling techniques. Even that comes with a set of “consequences”. That’s for another blog.

And lastly the shutter speed on my Leica M6 caps out at 1/1000th. Which is not much on a bright and sunny day.

Lucky for me we don’t have many of those here in the king of overcast weather Copenhagen.

Yes, ND filters can be used - yet another workaround.

So the ease of digital photography is in its own league compared to film.

I also had to relearn Street photography - as I mention earlier film is different than digital and using a fully mechanical camera with a manuel lens takes some time getting used to and a lot of practice.

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Wouldn’t trade it for ..digital?

I consider myself a hybrid shooter but maybe that’s been more of a mental transition for me. Maybe the last 8 months and counting have been preparing me to embrace the analog life style, the nostalgia or as some would say; “shooting myself poor” head on.

However the reality is that these days I use my digital camera the Fuji x100V less and less. But it is still so much fun to use when I use it.

.. I’ve thought about selling it for a few months now.

The reason you might ask. It’s simple, 99 percent of the time I want to use my analog film camera. I enjoy film more as simple as that.

In 2025 I might actually be ready to go fully analog - only using my Leica M6 as my daily EDC.