REFRESH · photography masterclasses
REFRESH
Learning to look with fresh eyes. Two days, an unfamiliar city and your camera.
What if you let your usual round go for two days and simply got lost in a city you do not know? No daily rhythm, no familiar routes, no voice in your head telling you how it is supposed to be done. Only you, your camera and a city that expects nothing of you yet.
✓ Also a one-day street photography workshop, in Antwerp, Utrecht or Nijmegen · ✓ REFRESH: two days in Paris or London
I believe the best photos happen when you are lost.
What if you let everything go for two days and got lost in a city you do not know? No daily rhythm, no fixed routes, no voice in your head telling you how it is supposed to be done. Only you, your camera and a city that expects nothing of you yet.
I believe the best photos happen when you have lost your way. Then you look the way you did when you had just started: curious, without judging what is good enough. And honestly, that is simply the most enjoyable thing there is.
That is what happens when you walk with me for two days through Paris or London. From the moment you arrive in that city, your REFRESH begins.
The bustle quietens. You observe, you record, you see things you would normally walk straight past. With every step you come closer to why you started photographing in the first place.
In two lots of five hours we look for that fresh eye together. I am your compass in the city and your sounding board. We talk a great deal about photography, about what you want and where you are growing. I make the route, you make the journey. And in between we sit on a terrace, because that is part of it.
Whether you prefer photographing buildings or people, looking for composition or contrast: after this two-day street photography masterclass you will walk more slowly and look more deliberately, guaranteed. You learn to read a city like a book, layer by layer.
Choose your city below. The groups are small, at most five people, so once they are full they are full.
In 2026 I am giving REFRESH twice more, in two cities
Every city has its own character, its own pace, its own light. Choose the city that draws you, or come to both; each masterclass brings new insight.
PARISFriday 25 and Saturday 26 SeptemberLAST MINUTE
Two-day street photography masterclass
Paris asks nothing of you. Not to be a tourist, not a connoisseur, not an art lover. Only to look. Along the Bassin de la Villette people sit who have nowhere to be. In the alleys of Belleville washing hangs out and music drifts from open windows. At Pere-Lachaise someone walks their dog as though it were a park. That is the real Paris, and that is what we are going to photograph.
For two days we move through quarters you do not know from the postcards: the covered passages of the Palais Royal, the back of the hill at Montmartre, rough-edged Belleville, the shadow of the Sacre-Coeur. I show you how to move through a city as a photographer, how to choose, wait, dare. You go home with photos you are proud of, and a way of looking you will not lose again.
This edition has a last-minute price and there is room for five participants.
Places go quickly. This masterclass runs in 2027 as well.
LONDONFriday 20 and Saturday 21 November
Two-day street photography masterclass
London is large, loud and sometimes overwhelming. That is exactly why it is such a wonderful city to photograph. The city forces you to choose: what do you leave out, where do you look, who do you follow with your eyes? Between the crowds on Oxford Street and the calm of the side streets of Soho lies a world of images most people walk straight past. Not you, not any more.
I take you along the Barbican, Southbank, Covent Garden and hidden places like Neal’s Yard and Leadenhall Market. Not as a tourist, but as a photographer who knows what he is looking for. After two days you know the city as most visitors never will, and you have a memory card full of images to prove it.
Here too: a maximum of five participants per group, so book in good time.
Almost full, only two places left. This masterclass runs in 2027 as well.
“Michiel is a highly talented and passionate photographer. Going on a journey through London with him, doing street photography, was a wonderful experience. The workshop felt more like a natural collaboration than a purely educational programme. I learned more than ever before and found real joy and inspiration during two intensive days. I will certainly join him on more photographic adventures in the future.”- Edwin Sturrus, participant, London workshop
Not as a teacher, but as someone looking for the same thing you are
I walk through cities not to record what happens, but to understand how a city moves. How light falls between buildings, how people find their rhythm in the crowd, how silence sounds on a full square.
I have written three books about it by now: Straatfotobijbel, De Wet van de Straat and The Observer. For Focus Magazine and Photofacts I write columns about my own photographic search, and in 2025 I helped contestants on Het Perfecte Plaatje sharpen their eye.
Photography is not about ISO values or shutter speeds. It is about looking, about seeing what was always there but which you overlooked because you were walking too fast or too busy trying to get everything right. Would you like to read more about that? My page on learning street photography brings the basics together, handy as preparation.
I bring that experience into REFRESH. Not as a teacher telling you how it should be done, but as someone who has walked a good many kilometres looking for the same thing you are: the moment you forget you are holding a camera and only look.
You do not learn how to operate a camera here. You learn how to read a city.
Who is REFRESH for?
The first photos you make are searching, perhaps cautious. The last ones are more confident, clearer. The same city, the same streets, but your eye has shifted. What was noise has become rhythm. What was chaos has structure. You take that home with you, and it sticks.
Do you recognise this? Then this street photography masterclass is for you.
- You feel like something new, away from your usual places
- You are after a challenge, you know there is more in it
- You want two days out of your normal rhythm
- You simply enjoy heading out with other photographers
REFRESH works just as well if you are still at the start of your photographic journey. It is valuable precisely then to discover early what kind of photography suits you, before you develop habits you have to unlearn later.
What to bring: a camera you feel reasonably at home with, good shoes and the appetite to walk. The rest comes along the way.
What this REFRESH costs
Ready to look with fresh eyes?
The two-day masterclass costs € 695 incl. VAT. The groups stay small, so once they are full they are full. I never take more than five people, which keeps it personal and gives me the room to really look alongside you. You arrange travel and accommodation yourself, which makes it easy to turn it into a long weekend.
Two days of getting lost. Giving your photography a fresh impulse, or that first impulse if you are still looking for what suits you. I would be glad to see you in one of these cities, with your camera, your curiosity and the appetite for two days of looking.