On Wednesday I joined a group of about 15 people for a group photowalk in the city centre of The Hague. For me, this falls in the ‘make yourself uncomfortable’ category. I’m an introvert and groups can be exhausting. Being late deaf also plays a big role because I feel vulnerable when telling people I’m late deaf. I can’t join conversations among many people. One or two is the max to be able to follow when I don’t have a text transcriber and depend on Google Live Transcribe¹ or people using their phones for notes.

But I figured it’s better than never putting myself out there. So I joined the group with my trusty Lumix LX100 II for the photowalk and dinner afterwards. I had a nice time walking around with everyone and observing how they go about taking street photos. Seeing everyone’s results afterwards was great. How everyone captured the same thing we all photographed, with different framing, distinct post-processing and colour grading.

I noticed I was more relaxed too with taking photos of strangers. It was like they were less bothered with a large group of people carrying cameras than tiny me when I’m alone. Hence I managed to capture a couple of nice shots of people without worrying they might notice me specifically. I like photos of people going about their day on the streets. Although sometimes they do notice and will smile at me. Those too make great photo

A selection of photos I took

I’m pretty happy with my results. In the three years I have been shooting with the Lumix LX100 II I have learned to use it pretty well. Since last year I also shoot with a secondhand Fuji X-T2 with a 23mm lens that I got for a good deal. I notice the zoom lens on the Lumix is distracting me while a prime lens forces me to think differently when framing a shot.

The photographer

Another cool thing about yesterday is that for once someone took a photo of me while I was in my street photographer mode.

Eventually, I’ll post some or all of these on my Instagram account. I’m considering resuming my Flickr Pro account. I cancelled it more than a year ago. But I might go back to it, as it is better than Instagram to showcase my photos.

All in all, a successful photowalk; met new people, took some nice photos and had a good dinner.

1. Google Live Transcribe can be wildly inaccurate with many people talking and it slows down after a couple of minutes. It works best with one person talking at a time without a lot of background noise. ↩︎