Creative shock therapy, aspect ratios, my workflow, street portraits - and why Lisbon?

London can make you feel like you have lost your eye. You walk for days, you chase the same old 'street moments', and somehow the city gives you nothing back. We talk candidly about that exact feeling and why it is not just a bad patch, it can be a sign that your work needs a real change. The big question I keep returning to is simple: if you do what you have always done, will you get what you've always got?

To jolt the creativity back into motion, Imake a serious commitment: from 1 July I am shooting black and white only, on a 28mm lens only, for at least six months. No colour. No swapping focal lengths. Just one tight creative constraint designed to change how I really notice light, shape, gesture and composition. If you have been stuck with street photography, documentary photography, or your personal projects, this is a practical experiment you can borrow.

I also answer listener questions with a no-nonsense post-shoot workflow: importing and culling fast in Photo Mechanic, embedding copyright and keyword metadata for archiving and SEO, then doing only basic darkroom-style edits in Adobe Camera Raw or Photoshop.

From there we jump into one of my favourite photo books, Sergio Larrain’s 'London 1959', I share thoughts on cropping and aspect ratios  and I have a big rant about empty street portraits made without purpose. Finally, we head to Lisbon with a detailed street photography guide covering light, neighbourhoods and how to get around.

Thanks for tuning into the StreetSnappers Street Photography Podcast. Do subscribe for the next show, share this with a photographer who feels stuck, and, if it resonates, leave a review so more people can find the podcast.

LINKS:

Sergio Larrain's book 'London 1959' - here

Subscribe to Brian's street photography newsletter - here

Book a street photography workshop with Brian - www.streetsnappers.com

Transcript

A Lisbon Reset And New Project

SPEAKER_02 0:12

There's an old saying that goes something like, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. And that's what I'm feeling right now with my street photography. So stay tuned to hear why and how I need to turn things around. This is serious. In other news, I just got back from Lisbon with sore legs, a suntan, and a few extra pounds in weight. But I think I got off lightly there, bearing in mind custard tarts and Portuguese beer and all of that lovely stuff. As per usual, we had great weather, it's always good weather in Lisbon, or maybe I'm just lucky, and a lovely workshop group, and I managed to have a few days of shooting on my own. I'm coming to the end of a project for Lisbon. I'm hoping I may be able to get a book out this year all about quiet street photography, or you could call it poetic street photography, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. So this isn't my usual voice of playful or cheeky or mischievous or ironic or absurd street photography, but something much more gentle, aesthetic, reflective, calm. And you know what? I've really been enjoying this. But I may need another trip or two to to get the whole thing finished, but watch this space. I'll keep you posted.

Hitting A Wall In London

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Now back to something I alluded to a couple of minutes ago. I was out shooting in London a few days ago, solidly actually, over four or five days, and I realized in a kind of eureka moment that I've reached a bit of a hiatus with my own work. I'd been pounding the streets in the heat, with a mild hangover on one of the days it has to be said, but that didn't hold me back. And I realized that I was looking for the same old stuff, the sort of moments which have always driven and inspired and motivated me. But the thing is, I wasn't seeing any, and not for the first time. The city was too crowded, nobody had anything interesting about them, nobody had any style about them, the colours everywhere were just aggressive and jarring. So either London is changing or I am. And having thought about this a lot now over the last five, six, seven days, I suspect it's a bit of both. I think both London and I are changing. Now when I'm out on the street, I usually have a project or two swelling around in my mind, but during this spell I didn't see anything worth shooting, either for projects or just my usual spontaneous stuff. Now let me be clear. Oh hell, I sounded a bit like Keir Stormer there. Let me be clear. As a one-off, that's fine and kind of expected, and it's something I try to instill into my workshop students that you know don't have great expectations. You have good days, you have bad days, good weeks, bad weeks. It's all part of part of the deal, part of being a street photographer. And it's it is expected. But it's been happening a bit too often to me, and I can, you know, I'm usually able to get stuff. So it's just become a bit clear to me that something needs to change. So I really need to take some time out and think through all this. But my gut reaction, which for me is usually right, is that I need to make significant, not superficial, changes. In essence, I need some sort of big jump leads attached to the creative part of my head to shock me into doing something different. And what that is, I don't know yet. But I do sense a new chapter opening up in my long journey, and I promise you'll be the first to know what comes next. But for starters, I've made one big decision, a commitment, if you like. And in one sense, it's for me it's a really big one. From the first of July and for the rest of 2026, so for at least six months, I'm going to shoot only black and white and shoot only on a 28mm lens. No colour whatsoever, nothing wider or longer than 28. I need some kind of creative constraint, I think. Now, usually when I shoot black and white, it tends to be for a specific project, but now I'll be using it for everything for at least six months. Now, this isn't in itself going to get me to where I need to get to. I know that. But it's a start, and I suspect it'll get me thinking and seeing differently. This is what needs to happen. I think restriction often does breed creativity, and I'm hoping the conversation sorry, I'm hoping the combination of only black and white and only 28 mil will shock me into something. I've no idea what, but something needs to happen. Actually, just thinking about this and talking about it now makes me really excited to get cracking with it, so I can't wait for July the first. Watch this space. Why do I mention all this? Well, because if this happens to me, it will almost certainly happen to you at some point. And I just wanted to be honest and open about my thinking, in the hope that you can take some inspiration from it, or even comfort from it. Right,

Six Months Of 28mm Black

SPEAKER_02 5:40

let's get right back into today's show with one of your questions, and this one is from Jeff. Off you go, Jeff.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I'm curious about your post-shoot process. You come home with a card full of images. What do you do next?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Thanks very much, Jeff. Another very relevant question. I'll preface this one by saying that I absolutely hate gorping at a computer screen, fiddling with pictures. I'd much rather be putting that time into taking more pictures, or playing tennis, or sitting in the garden, or sitting in the pub. So my approach to post-production is very straightforward and it allows me to do the basics well. And I do mean the basics. I was talking to a guy the other day who'd he was telling me he'd just he spent almost three hours perfecting a picture of some penguins. What? A bit excessive for a picture of a chocolate biscuit, but there you go. It takes all sorts. You won't catch me spending three hours on a whole day's worth of shooting, never mind one picture. So what is my process? Firstly, to get the images from the card to the camera, I use a fabulous bit of software called Photomechanic, which is produced by a company called Camera Bits. Photomechanics, great. I've been using this bit of IT magic since God was a Lonce Corporal, and nothing does the job quite as well as this does. And I think I'm only scratching the surface of what it's really capable of. So what happens is when I plug my card into the computer, the images go first of all straight into photo mechanic. Now, at that point, it imprints my all my metadata, it embeds my metadata in the pictures, which I have stored in different templates so I can put different sets of metadata into different sets of images. All happens all almost automatically. So this will include all the copyright and all the other legal info as well as the keywording and all that stuff, which is not only helpful when I'm trying to find an image in my archive, but it massively helps with SEO, that search engine optimization further down the line when I'm getting the images out there. So it will help Google find my images. So metadata is really important. You might think it's not, and it's a bit of a slog, and it's only for the pros. But if your one of your aims is to get your images out there, you need good metadata. And I might do a segment about this in a future episode. So at this stage, the raw files are uploading to a folder on my Mac, and that process is lightning fast compared to Lightroom. It just happens in the click of a finger. So once that's done, and I'm once that's done, and I'm still in photo mechanic, I'm I've got now got in front of me all my thumbnails on the screen. At this stage, I'll do the culling. So I'll just tag the pictures that are complete no hopers, and what this will now do is it'll zap all these big unwanted raw files into oblivion. It'll put them in a bin, leaving leaving me with just the probable and definite keepers. So for each of these, you know, it might have if I started with 100 pictures, I might be down to half of that now. So for each of these, I I just click on one of those thumbnails, hit the E key on my keyboard, and the individual image opens up in my RAW editor, which in my case is Photoshop or Adobe Camera RAW or yeah, whatever it is. In that raw editor, I'll make some basic, basic enhancements. So basically, I'll do here only what I could have done in the dark room. Changes to exposure, contrast, colour temperature, maybe a few little tweaks to shadows and highlights, maybe, and this could be a bit of a stretch, a bit of dodging and burning, but not much more than that. Maybe a little bit of cropping and straightening. Not much cropping, mind you, as I try to get the composition as good as good as I can in the camera. And my general personal personal rule of thumb is to keep cropping to within about 10%, 15% at a push. Right, once I've done my tweaks, I'll now save this image in a subfolder as a JPEG. So let's see, say I've finished editing a day's shoot in this way, and I've now got a folder of 20 or 30 JPEGs. I now use Photoshop's batch process to make low res versions of these, mainly for my website or social media, or just sharing with people or whatever. And these will now live in a separate subfolder labelled low res. At this point, I open up Lightroom. Not the old Lightroom Classic, which I personally just find to be really clumsy and clunky, but the cloud version, Lightroom CC, it's called, I think. I'll now upload these low res versions to a folder in there, which makes it instantly available in the Lightroom CC apps on my laptop, my iPad, my iPhone, anywhere else. It all syncs up. So my images just go with me everywhere. You know, at least usable lowish res versions of them. So the raw files and the high-res JPEGs will live in folders which will be stored on mirrored hard drives. Now, you may remember from a previous episode that I've been sent an amazing NAS system from Ugreen, which is kind of online RAID mirrored storage, which is utterly fantastic. Or it would be if I'd worked out how to use it yet. I just look at it sometimes. In fact, I'm looking at it now across the and it's glaring at me. And I almost daren't look at it because I feel so embarrassed that I haven't got my head around this yet, but I will do. So for now, the images live on hard drives which are stored all over the place. Now, maybe when I'm travelling, I'll short circuit much of this and will upload some of the RAWs directly to Lightroom on my phone or iPad, and I can work on them straight away and get them shared straight away. So that, Jeff, is my long answer to your short question. I try to make the process as palatable as I can, and quite honestly, if I spend more than about 20 seconds editing in an image, I feel I'm wasting my life away. There are better things to be doing in life.

A Fast No Fuss Editing Workflow

SPEAKER_02 12:28

It's book time, let's talk books. As you know, you can't you can't see what I have in front of me, which is a real shame, isn't it? Anyway, hopefully I can describe it for you. This is a splendid book by Sergio Lorraine. That's L-A-R-R-A-I-N, and it's called London 1959. And I think it's actually my favourite photo book, and I've mentioned this before, I've probably talked about it on my YouTube channel. It's the book I keep picking up and going back to time and time again. So Lorraine was a Chilean photojournalist and one of the early Magnum photographers who spent a lot of time shooting in London. At first look, the images in this book, and I'm actually leafing through it now, they're all quite they look a bit raw. They're not completely sharp, some of them are very much out of focused, and all of them are pretty grainy. They're all black and white, obviously. So we're not looking at perfection here. But you know what? Who cares? This is part of the charm, the vibe of these images, and I guess the zeitgeist of the era. This was when London was shrouded in fog or smog. The people were smartly dressed, all the guys are wearing ties, the women are wearing hats and nice coats, the cars all had a bit of style about them, even the cheap oles. And just London looked like a very different world compared to how it looks today. And do you remember I was talking a few minutes ago about how I think London is changing? Well, clearly it is changing, and you know, things do change. And maybe I'm just nostalgic for how I want things to look rather than how they look, which is my problem. But anyway, back to the book. So there was no brash advertising in London then, no idiots on electric bikes trying to nick your phone, no white vans or scaffolding everywhere, no nanny nose best signs from the government telling you to look left or the floor is slippery when wet. There was beauty in the simplicity, and this is what this book is. It's an exercise in simplicity. And it really makes me want to go out with this book in my head and try to take pictures like this to look for this kind of simplicity. Gotta be a good thing, hasn't it? One of the things that strikes me about this book is that it's simply a record of normal everyday life. And I'm usually the first to say that in street photography normal normal isn't interesting. Oh god, dog's barking next door. Sorry about this. I'm I'm in 30 odd degrees of heat in in my loft. It's 30 outside, it's probably about 60 in here. So I've got the window open, the birds are tweeting, the dogs are barking. Hopefully it doesn't interfere too much. But I I can't sit in a sauna. So normal. Yeah, normally normal isn't interesting norm normally. But this book isn't strictly street photography, it's more documentary, really. It's documenting a time and a place. And it's what it's documenting what the streets of London looked like at that time. It's all in black and white. I don't know what cameras Lorraine used at the time, but I suspect for most of this he shot with a 35 or a 50mm lens, probably on a like her. This book is published most recently by Thames and Hudson in 2021. Actually, I'm just looking at a picture now in the middle of the book, and it's a double page spread, and it's two oldish ladies, elderly ladies, looking at a menu in a cafe window. And it's fantastic. I could I could look at pictures like this all day. Anyway, Thames and Hudson 2021. It's probably not easy to find in bookshops, so I'll pop a link, an Amazon link to it in the show notes. I know it's always nicer to buy a book in a proper shop, but sometimes we just can't get them easily. I think it's currently available for about 30 quid. Now, if you like this book, there's a similar version based on Lorraine's hometown of Valparaiso in Chile, and it's called it's called Valparaiso. And it's a I'll I'll link to I'll give you a link to that one too. And it's a perfect accompaniment actually to the London book. What a lovely pair! Oh crikey, that sounded like something from a carry-on film.

A Favourite Photo Book On London

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Let's talk YouTube for a minute, and I just wanted to give you an update on my YouTube channel, which hopefully some of you subscribe to. It's been a bit quiet for a while. I know, please don't shout at me. But this is for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to get this podcast up and running and with some momentum behind it, and I think that happened. That's now happened, thanks in no small part to all you, lovely lot. Secondly, I just wanted to take a breather to work out the right direction for the channel. I'm not entirely sure what that's going to be yet, but I am working on it. So watch this space. I don't really know where where to go with this. You know, I I don't want it, it's certainly not going to become a gear channel. It's certainly not going to be coming philosophical and preachy. It's not going to be 95% of me walking around with a GoPro on my head. I just don't know. I'm just trying to work out a direction. And I know those of you who who subscribe to my newsletter, and I'll put a link to that below, by the way. You've already given me I did a bit of research via the newsletter, and I know that a big bunch of you have already given me your thoughts, which has been super helpful. But if anybody's got any ideas about what you would like to see in a YouTube channel, please drop me a line. I would love to hear from you, and you know, I I do take your thoughts into account, so it'd be really helpful.

YouTube Direction And Listener Input

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Let's have another question, and this comes from Robin.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Hi Brian, Robin here from Liverpool. Just a quick question about crop ratios. Interesting to hear you talking about them in the last podcast. My question is: do you think we should stick to traditional ratios like 10x8s, five by sevens, or social media sizes 16 by 9, or even an A size A4? I tend to stick to A4 for printing, and I do like 1x1 as well. But occasionally I need to crop to an odd size to help get the composition right, or to crop out an unwanted bollard or bin. What do you think? Is there anything wrong with the odd sizes, or should we be shooting with the traditional ratios in mind? Thanks very much. Keep up the good work.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Thanks, Robin. You you're becoming a regular contributor, and I always enjoy your questions, so do keep them coming. This question gives us a nice segue from episode nine about shooting square. And the honest answer is it doesn't matter massively, and it comes down to personal preference. One of the considerations is will the images be seen together as part of a as a as a project, as in an exhibition or a zine or a book or a set of prints? If so, then you I would say you do need some consistency, and I generally wouldn't mix it up too much. So that you're getting my personal opinion here. You know, this isn't there is no right or wrong way. This is my view. I wouldn't mix it up too much, and I would tend to find an aspect ratio that works well for your style and for the specific project, and I pretty much stick with it. Now, another consideration here is that certain crops can just look awkward. If it's not immediately clear about whether I'm looking at a square or a rectangular image, and sometimes you've you've really got to look carefully to work it out, it just creates a bit of tension, and I don't really need that. And this is where it can all go bit pitong. If you're cropping to remove a distracting lamp or whatever, because odd aspect ratios can be quite uncomfortable to look at. So as far as un unusual crops go, I wouldn't necessarily put you off doing this, but try to be consistent. I'm currently working on an idea for a set of seaside urban landscapes, and I've decided on a very specific aspect ratio for that, which is 65 to 24. So I've got hold of an old Hasselblad X Pan panoramic to do the job. That's commitment for you, isn't it? But hold that thought for a second and just imagine how much stronger that book will look if it contains 60 panoramic images in that aspect ratio and nothing more. I think it'll look pretty damn spectacular. And that's that's just an example. But back to normality, and about 95% of what I do is using conventional aspect ratios, and for me that means 3 to 2, 4 to 3, or square. Occasionally 5 to 4. But that's it. I rarely do anything other than that. I hope that helps, Robin. As I said, is a personal view, there's no right or wrong here. Boy, it's hot here, isn't it? But it's a good day for a rant.

Crop Ratios And Project Consistency

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Anyway, I have in my hand my X Army hand grenade, and I'm gonna metaphorically lob it into an issue that irritates me. And today's issue, today's topic is street portraits. Not all street portraits, obviously, I do them myself sometimes, and I'm sure many of you do. But I'm talking about the usual boring, gratuitous, meaningless stuff we see on Instagram. They're nearly always tightly cropped to the head and shoulders. They're often as of some random homeless person or character, and I'm making air air quotes with my fingers now, character. Why do street photographers always think they need characters? And often these pictures are processed to within an inch of their life. There's often no sign of any relationship with the subject and their environment, quite often due to the tight crop, I guess. And I sometimes look at these and think, why did you take that? Why does this photo exist? What are you gonna do with it? Is it because it's part of a project? Okay, great, I get that. Was it just for likes on Instagram? Hmm, not so sure. Or do you just enjoy the process of engaging with strangers and taking their pictures? And I do get that one. It's great fun, but it needs a bit more intent. Now, don't get me wrong, I I think shooting street portraits can be enormously rewarding and it's a fun experience, but come on, let's do it, let's do it with a sense of purpose, or at least some artistic intent. Not just a quick snapshot of some random person. And the you know, quite often the picture is neither good nor interesting. So please don't saturate social media with this stuff. Okay, you might have enjoyed taking that picture of some poor unfortunate or the guy with the biggest beard in the world, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good portrait, i.e. one worthy of sharing. Does the world really want to see it? That's the question you need to be asking yourself. Now, actually, I'm just gonna make a note. I'll do a I'll do a session, I'll do a segment on street portraits in a future episode, and there'll be some solid tips and techniques for you there. So watch this space. And

The Problem With Empty Street Portraits

SPEAKER_02 24:35

relax. Time for a pit stop and a breather. And my pit stop recommendation for you today is the Coach and Horses in Soho. There are at least three pubs in Soho called the Coach and Horses, but this is the only one to go to. And this is the one on the corner of Greek Street and Romilly Street. And I know I I most of my recommendations are about London because that's where I know and that's where I shoot. So, you know, I'd love to give you recommendations for a pit stop in New York or Tokyo, but I just can't do it. So I've been coming here for donkeys years, and it's the ideal place when you're shooting on a hot day and you need an emergency sharpener. Pop in there. One of the great things about this pub is it's a rich history, and that hits you when you walk in. It's a legend in its own lunchtime, and it's part of Soho folklore. The old landlord Norman Balin, he's moved on now to the great pub in the sky, as it happens. And he was always known as the rudest landlord in London, and you could get kicked out for wearing the wrong socks or smiling. As you walk in through the door, you're taken back to the 1970s with the old signage for double diamond beer and bass bitter, and there's a sticky carpet, and the you'll notice as you walk in, the pub is basically split into two parts, which are separated by a big square archway. The first area immediately ahead of you, according to legend, was for shoplifters and Italians. And the back room, the other side of the arch, was where the proper drinkers sat, the Soho set. Soho legends like Geoffrey Bernard, Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, and lots of actors and actresses and the usual band of Soho lushes. There's a great range of beer here. The service is very pleasant, and if you avoid the busy times when it can get really busy, you should be able to find a table easily enough, and there are a couple of tables and chairs outside. It's just a great characterful pub, and don't be surprised if you see people sitting at the bar drinking red wine at eleven AM. Not me, honest.

Lisbon Street Photography Field Guide

SPEAKER_02 26:52

So let's leave Soho and go somewhere a bit warmer and arguably a bit nicer. Lisbon. One of my favourite destinations for street photography. Lisbon is I've been visiting there for more years than I care to remember, and I think I know the city extremely well now. So I thought I could give you a bit of a heads up from a street photography perspective. So why is Lisbon so good for street photography? Well, there are plenty of things to like here, whatever type of street photography you're into. But let's start with the light, and this this matters to everyone. Lisbon's light is intense, it's crystal clear, it's bright, and it's unusually reflective. I think because of the combination of the Atlantic sun, the palestone streets, the tile building, the steep hills, it just kind of focuses the light like a giant magnifying glass. The midday light here can feel really harsh, but there's something in Lisbon that you don't get in other cities, despite the harshness, it can feel a little bit cinematic. What you get are strong, big graphic shadows, beautifully backlit silhouettes, colourful reflections off tram windows, off tiles. Then there's the golden light that you'll get late into the evening, and also the hills, which create challenging light angles throughout the day. So the same street can look completely different to hours later. Secondly, Lisbon's natural geography opens up a lot of opportunities and the the the steep terrain naturally builds layers. It helps create foreground-background relationships, and then you have numerous viewpoints, miradoros or miradoru they're called, which are elevated viewpoints which can add something else. All this makes coincidence, repetition, framing, visual connections all easier to uncover. Thirdly, there's a lovely intimacy about Lisbon. Unlike some modern cities, Lisbon still feels walkable and intimate. The streets are narrow, the pavements are small, people are physically close together, and I think that proximity helps with finding gestures, expressions, interactions, connections. It all helps you create layered compositions. In other words, you don't need a long lens to feel immersed, and you know, I I probably get the most out of Lisbon with a 28mm lens, maybe a 35. Fourthly, another good reason for coming, as far as backgrounds go, backdrops, or foregrounds for that matter, Lisbon is full of interesting and textured surfaces, peeling, paint, dilapidation, tiles, old signage, graffiti, tram cables, patterned pavements, and these are all often characterful and colourful. Then there's the pace of Lisbon. To me, Lisbon moves more slowly, and I think that slower rhythm helps us anticipate scenes, get much closer, and I think it helps us stay mentally relaxed while we're shooting. Why else? Well, I think there's enough in Lisbon to suit every kind of photographer, where you're into a classic observational style, whether you're into minimalism, multi-layered layered con contrasty saturated images, a la Alex Webb, black and white, a more documentary style, also perhaps humanist street photography, or poetic street photography, as I mentioned earlier. So there are plenty of good reasons to go and shoot in Lisbon. It's a great weekend destination, although you probably feel that a weekend is nowhere near enough, but it is doable in a weekend. So if I've now convinced you that there's enough reason to go there, what's the best time to go? Well, it's pretty warm there, and it's dry throughout the year. My favourite times are probably April and May and September and October. I'd avoid the midsummer months when there are just too many tourists and it's too hot, and this believe me, this city gets hot. Which are the best areas to visit? I won't give you detailed descriptions of each here. I think that'll probably be more usefully described in a YouTube video which I'll try to do soon because I've got lots of footage and b-roll about Lisbon. But I'll just give you a quick summary now. So firstly, in terms of areas, the first place you should go to is Murraria, which is the old Moorish quarter. It's made up mostly of an immigrant population from Africa and South Asia. It's bustling, it's gruffy, it can be colourful, it feels authentic, in parts it's edgy. It's street life. With all the sights, the sounds and smells that brings. There's definitely an authenticity about Muraria, but it's probably not for the faint-hearted. And in fact, my wife my wife hated it in Muraria and won't go back. So close by to Muraria on the eastern side of the city is Alfama, also referred to as the old town. Here you'll find dozens of tiny winding cobbled streets and alleys with little bars and fardo joints everywhere. It's very old, it's very cute, it can be a bit rough and ready, so pretty good for street photography, I would say. Then in a similar neck of woods, also on the eastern part of the city, is an area called Grassa, which leads up to what's probably the highest point in the city, and from here you'll get some great views of the city down towards the river, not street photography views necessarily, but if you're going, you should really have this view. It's quite a climb. You can take the tram part of the way up if your legs are tired, or just get an Uber if you don't fancy all the steps. I really like Grassa, it's got a nice neighbourhood feel to it, and some of the back streets. It's worth wandering, actually, it is worth wandering round Grassa. Go to the top for the view, but then come down a little bit, walk down the hill. In fact, what I'd probably do, start in Muraria, walk up to Grassa, and then walk down the hill to Alfama. That will give you a nice little triangle. There's a day's shooting there. That's the perfect day. So on day two, let's look at the more westerly side of the city. And there's an area called Bayro Alto, which is based on the side of a steep hill. And it's again a network of tiny streets conveniently arranged in a grid system. By days it's very quiet, mostly with locals pottering around, and some cars and dogs and motorbikes. Actually, a few years ago, I saw a pig a pig being taken for a walk on a lead in Bayro Alto. You don't see that in Chiswick. So this is a great place for what I call quiet street photography, or maybe poetic or lyrical street photography. There are some lots of loads of quirky little bars, restaurants, shops. It's a sort of place that you'd want to go to for the to document the atmosphere or the feel of the place rather than the activity. So not many people around, certainly by day, but at night we see the other side of Bayro Alto's personality, where these tiny streets come alive with bars, clubs, restaurants. It's a real destination for young partygoers and thrill seekers. And I suspect there are lots of thrills to be had behind the closed doors in Bayro Alto on a summer's evening, but I wouldn't know anything about that. Or would I? Anyway, you might want to pack your flash if you're heading out to Bayro Alto at night and capturing the action. It's a pretty friendly, happy, and relaxed part of town, so you shouldn't have any problem shooting there. Let's now leave Bayro Alto and head down towards the river, the main part of town, which is Baisha. That's B-A-I-X-A. And apologies to my Portuguese friends if my pronunciations are a bit off target. Specifically, we'll head to the main square, which is the one that appears on all the picture postcards, Praca do Comercio. On the way down here, there are several parallel streets worth exploring. One of them, I think it's called Rua Augusta, is a pedestrianized street full of tourists and tourist shops. It's brash, it's colourful, it's a bit tacky, but the light is pretty good. And if this is your thing, you you might find this productive. You know, a bit of Martin Parr touristy style street photography. Keep going down towards the river, and you'll get to the river frontage, which is great for colourful, brash, multi-layered street photography. This is there's a little kind of area by the river where people gather, people sit and look at the river. Beautiful. There's a long promenade here which runs all along the river, and it's perfect for getting those shots of tourists doing the silly things tourists do. A few other places of interest. One of the main squares, Rossio, can be pretty good for observational street photography, except at certain times of the year when it's full of temporary sheds flogging tourist stuff, so you'll probably want to avoid those periods. Then heading way out west on the tram, there's a place called Matt, which is M-A-A-T, the Matt Centre, which is the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, I think. It's about a 15-minute tram ride. And if if your thing is minimalist street photography, you know, little silhouettes and striking architecture and all that stuff, not really my cup of tea, but it might be yours, head out to Matt. It's great. You know, early in the morning when there are a few people around, you can get some really interesting, striking shots there. Similarly, if you were to head east from the city centre in the opposite direction, you'll find the national park area, which is a bit of a misnomer because it's not really a park, it's mostly modern architecture, and it's a bit like a Lisbon's version of Canary Wharf. Some stunning architecture. There are some park areas, there's a cable car, a railway station, which I think was designed by the architect Robert Calatrava, but I could be wrong. So it is, of course, completely stunning. There's an aquarium there, the national aquarium there, which has a superb waterfall outside it, which is quite photogenic. So again, if you like that sort of thing, head out on the metro. You can't get a tram there. You would get the metro. It's about a 15-20-minute journey on the metro, and the station you need to get off at is Oriente. So if you've decided to go to Lisbon, getting there from the city airport, getting to the city from the airport couldn't be easier. I use the metro, which is frequent, it's quick, it costs about €190. All the budget airlines seem to fly to Lisbon, so you shouldn't have trouble finding flights. That's if there's any jet fuel left by then, who knows? Then getting around Lisbon on public transport is easy. You can buy a little kind of travel card. It costs you 50 cents for an empty card, and then you load it with trips or load it with a travel card for a day or three days. All the single trips on the metro, on trams, buses cost 1 euro 90, so it's great value. But you probably only really need this if you're planning to travel out of town. I think most of the places I've described within Lisbon, you just have to do on foot. You don't really need to get public transport apart from going out to the outlying areas that I described. So give Lisbon a try. I I can pretty much guarantee that you you won't be disappointed. It's a terrific place. But I will try to cover this in more detail in a future YouTube video. And

What Is Coming Next

SPEAKER_02 39:22

that wacky music tells you that we're coming to the end. I'll try to get back to you with the next episode in the usual two weeks, but bear with me if it's three. I'll be in I might be in the recovery position for a few days when I get back. And in the next show, I'll be interviewing a street photographer whose name you have probably come across, especially if you're on Instagram, uh, and whose images you would probably have seen and recognize. He's a regular amateur street photographer, just like you. I'm not going to give you his name yet. He's not a big name as in what we think of as big names, but one day he will be. So do join me in a couple of weeks. Ciao, three, two, three, three, three, three, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, two, three, three, three, three, three, two, three, three, two, three, three, three, three, three, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, two, two, three, three, two, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, three.