Street Photography Tips, Interaction, Travel, Guides
*A series of guides on shooting Street Photography in cities around the world. Find the best spots to shoot, things to capture, safety concerns, street tips, and more for cities around the world. I have personally researched, explored and shot Street Photography in every city that I create a guide for. So you can be ready to capture the streets as soon as you step outside with your camera!
My Eastern European Street Photography Tour ended in Budapest, Hungary, which was a great city to finish it off. I enjoyed all the cities I worked and photographed during this trip, but if I had to choose, Kiev and Budapest would be my favorites. Budapest has become a top spot for travel in Europe, and it’s easy to see why. The city has so much to offer that it would also be one of my top cities to live in Europe. Check out my 7 first impressions of Budapest to find out some of the reasons why.
And as far as Street Photography goes, the city grows on you the longer you spend exploring all it has to offer. So here’s 33 photos that I was able to capture during my time in Budapest…
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken at Jaama el Fna in Marrakech, Morocco. Jaama el Fna is the main square in Marrakech and it’s really like no other square in the world. It is truly gigantic and can be overwhelmingly chaotic with so much going on. It fills with juice and food stands, street performers and hustlers, tourists and locals, monkeys and snakes, and everything else you can imagine.
Just before sunset, the square’s outside restaurants start setting up for dinner. They put up the poles and temporary rooftops, set up the tables and get everything ready for the night, which is when the square gets especially packed.
I was walking around the corner of one line of restaurants when I ran into the scene in the photo. The light, shadow and layers of all that was going on immediately caught my eye, but when the boy’s hand pointed up, I quickly reacted by taking the photo, without time to think. Fortunately, instincts composed well enough on their own.
For anyone visiting Marrakech, I’d really recommend visiting the square around an hour or two before sunset. Not only is the light the best, but you get plenty of activity and life without it being too crowded yet. The square’s so big, you can easily spend hours exploring and photographing the area.
* “Master Profiles” is a series profiling all the great photographers of uncontrolled life. Unlike the rest of the blog, I’m doing these in a straight profile format to make it easy for quick access to facts, quotes and knowledge on all the masters. I’ll also group them together here every time I add a new one.
Constantine Manos (1934-present)
An American photographer with a long history in photography, but more recently known for his work capturing American life in vivid color.
After Belgrade, I made my way up to Budapest, Hungary for some work and decided to stay longer than planned, while also making a short trip to Bratislava. When I first arrived in Budapest, the weather wasn’t good, the light was bad, and I wasn’t finding much to shoot. So why did I stay longer? Because there’s something special about Budapest that I didn’t want to leave yet. Fortunately, the weather and light got better, and I started finding photos too.
Living in Istanbul and traveling around Eastern Europe, I was constantly hearing about how great Budapest is from travelers. It had the feeling of the “new european city” being added to every traveler’s list. Everyone’s always trying to find the new city in Europe that has so much to offer, but hasn’t been overrun with tourists or inflated prices yet. And Budapest is that city right now.
I remember my first time in Prague years ago, before everyone found out about it. Budapest has that similar feeling. And it’s great.
So here are my first impressions of Budapest, from my personal Street Photographer perspective…
For this Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week, I’m sharing a few photos instead of just one. They were all taken in Budapest, Hungary at the trolley stop by Fővám tér. Last week, I shared another photo taken here too. As I said in that post, this spot became one of my favorites in Budapest. So I ended up spending a lot of time walking around the area with my camera.
On one side of the trolley stop you can get some great light when the sun is out. It shines right into the old yellow and red trolley windows so if you expose for it, you can get some nice light and shadow effects with the people inside.
All three photos above were shot in the same way. The trolleys come every minute or two so I’d just walk along looking for anything interesting when each one would come. Then, with the settings exposed for the highlights, I’d quickly capture any interesting people or scenes I saw inside the trolley windows where the light was how I wanted.
The trolleys, colors, architecture through the windows, and the people inside them, all go along with a feeling I get in Budapest that I really like. An authentic, older city full of life.
While working in Budapest, I decided to take a quick 2 hour train ride up to Bratislava, Slovakia to spend a few days in a city I didn’t know too much about. It’s not at the top of most people’s lists to visit when it comes to European capitals, but I’m more than glad I spent some time exploring this unique little city with my camera. It has a relaxing vibe with history, character and a ruggedness that comes without the fast paced chaos of bigger capital cities.
So here’s 33 photos that I was able to capture during my time in Bratislava…
*A series of guides on shooting Street Photography in cities around the world. Find the best spots to shoot, things to capture, safety concerns, street tips, and more for cities around the world. I have personally researched, explored and shot Street Photography in every city that I create a guide for. So you can be ready to capture the streets as soon as you step outside with your camera!
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken in Budapest, Hungary by Fővám tér. There’s so much going on around this area that it became my favorite spot for Street Photography in Budapest. The variety of scenery and life is great.
One of my favorite parts of the area is the busy trolley stop in between the square and the Great Market Hall. There’s a good mix of people, the light is great, and I like the old yellow and red trolleys. The trolleys come on both sides every minute or two so sometimes I’ll walk around this spot seeing if any interesting shots come along on either side.
On one trolley side, you have the light shining and on the other, you don’t. So shooting manually, you do have to make sure you have your exposure settings constantly adjusted. For this shot, luckily I had my settings already adjusted for the dark side because it happened in an instant reaction.
I was walking along looking at something ahead of me when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman feeding a young boy a banana through the trolley window. It was such a weird moment/scene that I immediately reacted by turning, lifting up my camera and taking the shot before even thinking.
The fast reaction turned out to be necessary because as soon as I took the shot, the moment was over and the trolley was leaving. The reflection added something to the photo too, but for this shot it was all instincts and reaction before anything else.
