What is the Best City for Street Photography?
How the Ricoh GR III fared in this street photography paradise.
I don’t know about you all, but whenever I have discussions about street photography, the topic of New York tends to come up. Especially when discussing places that are fun to photograph. If you had asked me a year ago about my favourite location for street photography, I would have gone on about how New York is perfect for me, followed closely by London.
I probably would have talked about how people there are completely unfazed by having their photo taken, which in turn makes creating images less stressful and more fun. I would have also gone on to talk about both the density and diversity of people, which is also great for street photography. As they say, ignorance is bliss. My opinion at the time was based on having photographed a few cities in Europe, New York, and Toronto, of course.
Well, after my experiences photographing in both Pakistan and Turkey, I have come to a different conclusion. Spoiler alert: it’s Istanbul, followed closely by Pakistan, with New York being a distant third. To keep this newsletter a manageable length, I’m only going to talk about my experiences in Istanbul. I stopped over in Istanbul for three days on the way back home from Pakistan. Those days were spent exploring the city and trying my hand at street photography. I had no idea what I was about to get myself into.
A Labyrinth of Opportunity
Coming from Pakistan, Istanbul actually didn’t feel all that different. My first impression was mostly confusion at the mix of islamic and European architecture, I had never seen that before. When it came to the people however, their energy felt very Asian. What I mean is that people were much warmer towards me. They were far less intimidated by my camera, and seemed to mostly be used to, and accepting of it.
When it comes to street photography, I love capturing people. So any place where the locals are used to that is my ideal spot. That’s a big reason why New York used to be on the top of my list of places I like photographing. I’d say Istanbul was similar in this regard, however the density of people seemed to be higher. Which only adds to the fun of street photography. Since there’s more people, there are more opportunities to creating images. Not just create more images, but also better images. I’ll get into that a bit later.
Armed with the Ricoh GRIII, I was shooting on my favourite focal length of 28mm. A wide perspective works best with large, dense crowds of people. It gives you the ability to fill the frame, and play with layering. Not only that, but due to the density of people you can naturally get closer to subjects. All of which comes together into the perfect storm for street photography.
Since it was my first time in Istanbul, I visited the usual tourist areas. These places were filled to the brim with tourists, which provided the density I was looking for. However I’m not someone who is drawn to photographing tourists very much, I find locals to be much more interesting subjects. I just like how locals fit into their environment, it feels complete to me.
I walked a few streets over from the tourist hotspots to find some peace and quiet. My wanderings eventually lead me from the quiet side streets into the area near Grand Bazaar. At first glance this labyrinth of streets is full of shops attracting tourists, so just another tourist attraction. The narrow streets, coupled with the crush of people made me stick around though, as it made for great street photography. But as I navigated the maze trying to understand the area better, I noticed a few things.
Beyond the tourists, there were quite a few goods being moved around the streets. Carried, pushed, and wheeled by local workers who navigated the intensely busy alleys with a practised deftness. People of all ages, moving goods around the old fashioned way. Not only that, but there was an entire ecosystem of people delivering food and tea to these workers. Once I discovered this network, it was what I spent most of my remaining time photographing. I’ll leave you with a few images to try and give you a glimpse into the people who make the bazaars of Istanbul possible.
It is refreshing to see street photos outside of NY!