Street Photography

Chasing Light

25th January 2019 By Mike Barrett

It’s always fun heading out to get long exposure photographs in urban settings. On this occasion I was running a workshop with MODE VITAL. It was a chilly January night, but conditions were ideal for capturing this type of shot and there was a lot of traffic about.

It’s always interesting teaching people new skills. It’s rewarding beyond compare. I love to see those little eureka moments as the realisation occurs that the scope of possibility is broadening, much like the smile that accompanies that realisation. DSLR cameras can do so much if you are aware of the settings that are available to you and indeed how to use them in conjunction with each other. If you get to know your kit and how it works the possibilities in terms of shots are literally limitless. When you know how to use your kit the rest is just perception and imagination.

I only took five shots on this particular night. This one was shot number three. I had set the camera up purely as a demonstration mechanism and to determine what sort of settings would be optimal in this particular environment and for this composition. This type of shot is great for learning about the manual settings of a DSLR as it is such an extreme type of photography if you are relate it to the normal point and shoot shot that most people would take on their phones for instance. You have to set up for a long exposure in order to capture all those beautiful light trails and in turn you need to know how to control and set your ISO to determine the quality of the shot. Then there is the lens aperture, setting this up correctly is critical in order to capture all that beautiful detail. So you are very much hands on with the whole exposure triangle. There were some other things that we looked at like hyperfocal distance when focusing, timings and what to look out for regarding the capturing of good, strong imagery and moving light. Composition and leading lines etc. All good fun for those who love to learn more about these photographic processes.

Lens EF17-40mm F/4L USM @ 40mm, F16, ISO 100, 20.0 Seconds Exposure, Tripod Mounted.

Sheffield Street Moments

6th August 2018 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

I went back to Sheffield recently with fellow TOG and good friend of mine, Graham Binns. It was a hot, hot day and we wanted to spend a our time doing something photographically creative. Due to the burning hot weather we thought that street photography was going to fit the bill. It was a little too bright for landscape photography and we had limited time also. So what better than to get out into the city streets and photograph joe public.

It was a cracking day but man was it hot. Like, exhaustingly hot. I think I must have perspired about 4 litres of sweat. That said, it was a fairly productive session. I have shot in sheffield on a couple of occasions now and have really enjoyed the vibe of the city. Many people approached us and spoke to us. My favourite image is the old guy sitting on the steps reading his book. I really like the leading lines in tis image. I really love the moment and the fact that the pigeon is just strutting around in front of him. You can feel the mood of time gently passing. Lost in a good book.

Here are a few from the pile…

Photographing Manifest Skateboards

26th February 2018 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

I recently went to spend a little time with an old and very good friend of mine Matt who resides over in Sheffield in South Yorkshire. Not too long ago he set up his own company making bespoke, hand made skateboards under the name Manifest Skateboards. About a year ago I did a small amount of work for him concerning some graphics for his decks. As a gesture in kind, Matt agreed to make a deck for my brother who is well into his skateboarding. For one reason or another I’d not seen Matt for a while, but I got to see the deck that he had made for my brother at Christmas time when visiting the family. I was blown away at what a beautiful thing it was. A well made, well finished, beautiful wooden skate deck with the Manifest logo emblazoned across it in black paint. Now I hung up my skate shoes many years ago, but the craftsmanship that had gone into this deck made me want to fish them out and start skating again right there and then. Made with the freshest, tastiest Canadian maple ply, (which is a Manifest tag line) this deck was an absolute thing of beauty. My brother was chuffed to bits with it too.

I got in touch with Matt to thank him for making this beautiful deck and to let him know how how stoked my brother was to have received it through the post. As old friends do, we got chatting about all sorts and putting the world to rights etc, but also during the conversation I said that I would like to come and make a video of Matt and his skateboard making endeavours and perhaps take some promotional photos for his company. He thought this was a great idea. So that is exactly what we did. It was great to catch up with my old friend too.

Below are some of the images I took for Manifest Skateboards. You can also see the video I made here: Crash, Bang, Wallop!

Chasing Light in the Snow

24th January 2018 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

It was a cold, cold night. Freezing actually. Snow and sleet showers were sporadic and yet my friend, fellow tog Graham Binns and I decided it was a good time to go out and take some photos.

We wanted to get some images based on traffic movement at night. Light tracers derived from long exposures against a cold, black night sky.
This turned out to be somewhat difficult as there was hardly any traffic on the roads. It had been a really bad day for people trying to get home from work many of which had abandoned cars in a bid to make it home and get some warmth back into their bones. It hadn’t been a particularly bad snow fall, in fact in many areas most of it had thawed. What had made things decidedly difficult during the day was that the temperature had dropped well below zero on a couple of occasions, freezing water on the roads turning it to black ice. It had then snowed on top of that ice and which had made driving conditions ridiculously tricky. Some cars had turned over, buses had got stuck etc.

We dug our heals in somewhat and stuck it out, even though we were getting colder and colder by the minute. Despite the conditions we were having a great deal of fun moving about from place to place in a bid to get a couple of decent shots. It was getting late and the handful of photographs that we had taken were nice enough, but I certainly felt that I needed something more. In a last ditch effort to get something worthy of the evenings efforts we happened upon a bus shelter while driving into a local town. We texted the number on the shelter to find out if there was another bus coming our way. It was quite late and we had wondered if all the buses had stopped running, especially due to the weather conditions. As it turned out there was one last bus heading our way and the text service had given us it’s time of arrival. So we drove into town to set up the tripods in order to capture the passing light when the bus eventually did turn up. Sure enough it came into view in the distance as promised and I managed to get my best shot of the evening as it moved past us. The leading lines in the resulting image are just insane. All of them leading to one vanishing point. Such a great shot to get at the end of the evening, which is this first shot in this handful of images taken on the night.

On The Phone But Not In The Box – Sheffield Street Photography

17th January 2018 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

My wife was recently lecturing at Sheffield Hallam University, so I went down with her for the day to do some street photography. I have visited Sheffield quite a lot over the years when visiting one of my good friends, but I have seldom got out into the city centre. So I took this opportunity to do just that. It was a good day for it. Not too bright, not too dull. A semi cloudy day with good diffused light.

Everybody seemed to be on their phones. It very much seemed to be a day of just that, or perhaps that’s just where my focus went on this occasion. One of my little tricks on the day was shooting through a couple of old red phone boxes to give a little framing to the images that I was taking. I really like how these shots have turned out. Here are a handful of shots from the day.

Bits of London – DSLR

9th March 2017 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

Here are some more shots from our trip to London. These were taken with my DSLR. Click on the images below to view the full pictures.

Urban Urchin

13th February 2017 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

Leeds Street Photography – (07.07.2016)

14th July 2016 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

I went out with a good friend of mine the other day to do some street photography in and around the city of Leeds. I love to photograph people as I have stated on many occasions and much of my photography reflects this passion. To some extent, street photography is a far cry from many of the situations that I find myself in as a professional photographer, but also similar in as much that you’re still looking for the same human responses and idiosyncrasies. The style of wedding, family and event photography that I produce is of a documentary and candid nature and still very much deals with that frozen moment where the subject/person is not necessarily aware of the photograph being taken. That said, the subject/person could then glance over at me and not be at all surprised to see me there because I am of course meant to be there to record the event as it happens.

With street photography this dynamic changes because you are photographing people who are blissfully unaware that they are having their photo taken. Most of the time anyway. With that comes new challenges, certainly regarding getting specific shots and capturing specific moods. You are recording people in public and therefore have to deal with your subject matter in a slightly different way by being a little more discrete in your approach. I have found that the resulting photography is far more subtle and the narrative behind each image is slightly more profound. You are still telling a story with your work. Much of the time you are looking for real authentic junctures that speak of where you are. Mirroring the story that the street is telling so to speak.

Here are a hand full of images from the Leeds shoot.

Aspects of London

11th July 2016 By Mike Barrett Leave a Comment

Here are a few shots from a recent trip to London.

I don’t get to London as often as i would like to, to be honest. The energy and mix of culture there is fantastic. There is always something mad going on. The smells, sounds and colours are diverse and abundant. I need to go there purely to take photographs. Might have to plan a bit of a photography road trip at some point soon.

Street Photography

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