Street photography has always depended on strangers. Its great tradition is built on candid images of people who didn't know they were being photographed: a man leaping over a puddle, a couple arguing on a bench, a child staring at the camera from a doorway. Many of those photographs are masterpieces. Many of them would be much harder, and perhaps impossible, to make today.

I have been photographing in public for nearly twenty years, and my thinking about this has changed a great deal. This is not a rulebook. It is an honest account of where I've ended up, for now.

What's changed

When I started, the main question was legal. In many countries, photographing people in public spaces is broadly permitted, though the details vary considerably from place to place and around how images are used. That hasn't fundamentally changed.

What has changed is what happens to photographs afterwards. A candid image that once lived in a darkroom drawer or a small exhibition might now be shared, copied and seen by millions of people in hours. Someone photographed at a vulnerable moment — upset, unwell, exhausted — can find that moment permanently attached to their name. That possibility has made me much more careful.

The question isn't whether you're allowed to take the photograph. It's whether you'd be comfortable showing it to the person in it.

The test I use

These days, I apply a simple test before publishing any photograph of an identifiable stranger: would I be comfortable showing this picture to the person in it, face to face?

If the answer is yes — because it's a warm, dignified or simply ordinary image — I'm usually comfortable using it. If the answer is no, or I hesitate, I don't publish it. That test has removed a lot of photographs from my portfolio, including a few I was once proud of. I don't regret it.

Asking

More and more, I simply ask. For portraits, I almost always do, either before or immediately after taking the picture. Most people say yes. Many are curious about why you want to photograph them, and those conversations are often the best part of the day. Some say no, and that's the end of it.

Asking changes the photograph, of course. The person is aware of the camera. They might straighten up, smile or adjust their hair. Some photographers feel this destroys the spontaneity that makes street photography special. I understand that view. But I've found that if you're patient — if you keep talking, keep the camera low and wait — people relax again quickly. The resulting images are different from candid ones, but often more intimate.

When not to photograph

There are situations where I now don't photograph at all:

  • People in obvious distress, unless they ask me to document what's happening to them.
  • People who are visibly unhoused, unless I've spoken with them and they've agreed.
  • Children, unless I've spoken with their parent or guardian.
  • Anyone who has clearly signalled they don't want to be photographed — turning away, covering their face, shaking their head.
  • Places of worship, hospitals and other settings where people are likely to be private or vulnerable.

What remains

You might think all this caution would make street photography impossible. It doesn't. It has simply shifted my work towards different kinds of images: crowds and gestures where no single person is the subject, shadows and silhouettes, small moments of warmth and humour, and portraits made with permission.

street silhouette
street shadows
street umbrella
Silhouettes, shadows, umbrellas: street photographs where no one is identifiable.

Sharing the photographs

When I do photograph people with permission, I try to send them a copy. I carry a small stack of cards with the studio's email address, and I ask people to write to me if they'd like their picture. Not everyone does. Those who do often send lovely replies, and a few have become friends.

It's a small gesture, but it changes the relationship. The photograph stops being something I took from them and becomes something we made together and both get to keep. In a genre that has sometimes been accused of treating people as raw material, that feels like a modest step in the right direction.

A note for beginners

If you're just starting out in street photography and feel nervous about photographing people, that nervousness is not a weakness. It's a sign that you're taking other people seriously. Start with places and light rather than faces. Practise asking, which gets easier every time. And remember that a smile and a short explanation solve most awkward moments. The best street photographers I know are, almost without exception, genuinely interested in other people — and it shows in their work.

The photographs I didn't take

There is a small collection of photographs that exist only in my memory, because I chose not to take them. A woman crying quietly on a train. An elderly man asleep on a park bench with a newspaper over his face. A couple saying goodbye at an airport gate.

Some of them would probably have been good pictures. All of them belonged to the people in them, not to me. I think about them more often than many of the photographs I did take.