The Plan

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

In part one of this column, I discovered that much of his street archive is interchangeable, and that with the eyes he has now, he hardly makes anything anymore. In this second part: how he returns to the streets, but with the patience he learned in the studio. And an assignment for you.

I ended part one with a question: what does suit a street photographer who no longer wants to rely on quantity? I have been experimenting with that over the past few months. What follows is not a recipe. It is what I do now, and why.

It starts with a word that goes against everything I have ever learned about street photography: plan.

Street photography thrives on chance. That remains true. You cannot direct what happens at a crossroads, and you should not want to. But chance and planning do not exclude each other. 

In the studio, I learned that you can invite chance. You set up the light, choose the background, start a conversation, and then wait for something to happen that you could not have thought of yourself. The preparation makes the moment possible. I take that idea outside with me.

In practical terms, that means two things.

Second: one place, and returning until it is right. That is the biggest change for me. I no longer walk all over the city looking for whatever there is to find. I choose a corner, a street, a square, and stay there. An hour, sometimes longer. 

And the following week I go back. Different light, different people, the same place. In the studio, you do not go home after ten minutes because the portrait is not right yet. You stay, you wait, you let it come. Why did I never do that on the street?

I tried this in London, during a few free hours between two workshop days. One underpass near Barbican, harsh morning sunlight, strips of light on the ground. In the past, I would have stood there for three minutes, taken two photos of the first passer-by in the light, and moved on. 

Now I stayed. Twenty minutes, still somewhat restless, outside my comfort zone. I saw how the light shifted, I saw which people walked slowly and which walked quickly, I saw that there was a moment when the strips fell exactly at eye level. 

When that moment came, I knew exactly what I wanted. I took seven photos. One of them is good. Taken deliberately, with attention to light and timing. This photo was a choice.

That is what I take from the studio: waiting, and a form of direction. Not directing the people, but directing myself. Where am I standing, what do I see, what am I waiting for?

What I deliberately do not take with me is control over everything. That is the trap when you come from portrait photography. You want to control the light, the pose, the expression. That does not work on the street, and it should not. 

As soon as you start directing everything, you are no longer making a street photo, but a portrait with a street as its setting. Chance must remain in charge. I only prepare the place where chance is allowed to happen.

And then the hardest part. Choosing.

The assignment, for me as well.

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