Street photography? No, from now on conceptual photography workshops on the street.

There was a moment when I noticed that the term street photography was starting to chafe for me. Not because the genre has become any less fine, quite the opposite. The passion remains.

Street photography remains for me one of the purest forms of photography. It is looking, reacting, feeling the rhythm of a city. But the room to do that has changed. The world has grown more aware of privacy, and that awareness has quietly influenced the way we photograph in the street. People react differently. Sometimes warmly, sometimes suspiciously, sometimes simply uncertainly. And I understand that completely, because rules such as the GDPR have shifted the tone of the conversation. Not always justly, but noticeably. The question of whether you may photograph someone comes up sooner than the question of why you are photographing them. And in that shift I slowly lose part of the freedom I used to feel.

At the same time I notice that street photography was increasingly seen by many of my workshop participants as a narrow niche. A corner of photography where you mainly have to catch quick moments, preferably with people in the frame, preferably with a little tension. As though there is a secret recipe you have to learn in order to count. As though street photography needs a stamp to be worth anything. I feel less and less at home in that. I notice I want something that goes further than chasing chance moments. Something with more layers. More direction. More room for your own interpretation and intention.

One day, somewhere in a busy city where I was walking with a group of participants, I realised that the finest conversations that day were not about technique or catching moments, but about ideas. About emotion. About themes such as silence, light, patterns, struggle, hope, humour. About why someone photographs at all. Those are the moments that really stay with me. The moments when someone does not ask how to react faster, but how to look deeper.

That is where the idea came from to aim my workshops no longer at street photography as a genre, but at conceptual photography on the street. A very subtle shift perhaps, but a fundamental one in how you look and how you work. Conceptual photography feels like a liberation to me. It is a way of working in which the idea, the word, the feeling you choose becomes the starting point for everything you record. In which you look not only for moments but for meaning. For a series that grows. For a project that lasts longer than the workshop itself.

In my own photography I notice a growing need to build on something. Not to jump from image to image, but slowly to form a story that surprises me too. Conceptual photography gives me that. It brings calm to the searching. It gives direction to the wandering. I find that when I have a key word in my head, the city shows itself to me differently. Everything I see is filtered through that word. Interaction. Stillness. Rhythm. Struggle. Hope. Difference. Whatever you choose, it determines how you look. It makes your photography more personal, more honest, deeper. And honestly, it makes me fall in love again with walking through a city, with what is essentially street photography.

When I cautiously started giving conceptual assignments during my workshops (emotion, interaction), something changed in the dynamic. Participants started talking differently. The conversations were less about settings and more about looking and seeing. Less about rules and more about intention. What I liked most was that people were less occupied with what they were and were not allowed to photograph, and more with what they wanted to photograph. That is a real liberation for me within a genre that sometimes sits too much under a legal magnifying glass. We consider Ed van der Elsken a great example, but we no longer dare make the photos he made. Within conceptual photography the focus shifts from who is in the photo to what you are trying to say. The presence of people is no longer a requirement but a possibility, an addition. They become extras.

I also notice that many participants long for something they can follow over a longer time. A project they still enjoy months later. A thread that pulls them through periods of doubt, searching and development. More than that, it keeps them photographing, even on days when inspiration seems far away. Conceptual photography helps with that. It gives you a peg to hang something new on with every walk. It forces you to choose more consciously and therefore to look deeper. And that is exactly what makes photographing interesting to me: the slow process of surprising yourself.

My own search sits right in the middle of that. I want to grow. To look further than I was used to. And I find that this way of working keeps challenging me. I see patterns I did not see before. I see connections. I see small details I would otherwise have walked past. It is as though the city itself starts a conversation with you the moment you have chosen a direction. You do not only learn to photograph, you learn to listen to the city. And I want everyone to have that feeling. That is why my workshops have become what they are now. I just did not know how to explain it, until I came across the term conceptual photography. Nor is it that I am leaving street photography behind, but I believe the street becomes infinitely richer the moment you walk through it with an idea.

The choice for conceptual photography on the street is therefore not a farewell to the genre but a deepening of it. A widening. A way of getting round the limitations street photography is sometimes faced with now, and at the same time getting much closer to the essence.

Because in the end photography for me is about giving meaning to what you see. About looking for stories that suit you. About growing, even when you do not know exactly where it is going.

And that is why I offer these workshops. Because I believe that working conceptually opens up your way of looking. Because the street is an endless backdrop that lets itself be read differently every day. And because I see how participants, and I myself, find new energy the moment an idea comes into play. I want to help people start a project that lasts longer than a day. Something you can come back to. Something that feeds you. Something that makes you proud. The street is the perfect place for that, but it is your way of looking that tells the story.

Curious what conceptual photography actually means in practice? I wrote about it separately in conceptual photography: from idea to image, with 25 tips for hitting the street with an idea of your own.

That way of looking is something I would like to work on with you.