Nijmegen · Utrecht · Antwerp · Amsterdam · Paris · London
Street photography workshops and masterclasses
At some point you start looking differently. Not at what is there, but at what is happening. The man who turns up his collar exactly as a bus races past. The two women who laugh at the same moment without speaking to each other. The light that disappears round a corner just before you get there. Street photography is keeping up with those small, fleeting truths that make the world so beautiful and so raw, and making a photograph of them before they are gone.
I have been teaching street photography workshops for years, in Dutch cities and far beyond. Not because I think everyone should photograph the way I do, but because I am convinced that every photographer, beginner or experienced, benefits from heading into the street with someone else. You see more when you know more. And you know more by simply doing it, together, with someone who points out what you just missed.
- A maximum of five participants
- De Straatfotobijbel (in Dutch) and instruction video beforehand
- You work with one key word
- Feedback by email after the day
- A free month of Photofacts
One-day workshops · 10:30 to 14:00
Four cities, four different sessions
A group workshop goes ahead with a minimum of two participants.
Nijmegen
Conceptual street photography workshop
Learn to look again and to capture your surroundings spontaneously, working from a solid idea. A workshop tailored to you, in a group of five at most.
€ 295
Including 21% VAT
See the dates Conceptual street photography workshop Nijmegen
Antwerp
Conceptual street photography workshop
Learn to look again and to capture your surroundings spontaneously, working from a solid idea. A workshop tailored to you, in a group of five at most.
€ 295
Including 21% VAT
See the dates Conceptual street photography workshop Antwerp
Utrecht
Conceptual street photography workshop
Learn to look again and to capture your surroundings spontaneously, working from a solid idea. A workshop tailored to you, in a group of five at most.
€ 295
Including 21% VAT
See the dates Conceptual street photography workshop Utrecht
Amsterdam
Conceptual street photography workshop
Learn to look again and to capture your surroundings spontaneously, working from a solid idea. A workshop tailored to you, in a group of five at most.
€ 295
Including 21% VAT
See the dates Conceptual street photography workshop Amsterdam
A fantastic workshop in Utrecht! I had some experience already, but I learned to look far more creatively thanks to the varied assignments, valuable tips from Michiel and the experience he shared. I would happily do it again.Susanne Wegen
How my workshops work
Some people teach a workshop by delivering a lot of theory and then saying: go and practise. I do it differently. We head into the street quickly, and everything I want to pass on I give you while we walk. While you photograph. At the moment it is relevant.
What also sets my approach apart is that I work conceptually. That may sound more complicated than it is. What I mean is that I do not simply let you shoot at everything that looks interesting. Instead you choose a key word, something like Solitude, Interaction, Reflection or Rhythm, and that word becomes a filter on your eye. Not as a limitation, but as a direction. You will notice you look more deliberately, make more conscious choices, and come home at the end of the day not with a bag of loose photos but with the beginning of a series that is about something.
The groups are small, a maximum of five participants, so there is room for personal attention. You ask your questions, I listen, and we work on what you want to learn. After the workshop you send me your best photos and I give you extensive feedback by email. Simply because the learning does not stop when we say goodbye.
One-day workshops
The one-day workshops run from 10:30 to 14:00 and take place in three cities that each bring their own character. Every workshop costs from € 295 incl. VAT, including my book De Straatfotobijbel (in Dutch) and a free month of access to all Photofacts courses. We pick up lunch together along the way. Your camera does not have to be an expensive DSLR: if you have a prime lens somewhere between 28 and 50mm full frame, you are fine. And if you work with your phone? That is fine too.
Utrecht - street photography between the canals
See the dates UtrechtUtrecht street photography workshop →
Utrecht feels like a city that does not need to raise its voice to be heard. You hear it in the soft murmur along the wharf cellars, in the bicycle bells finding their way through the shoppers, in the smell of bread drifting out of a bakery on the Oudegracht. It is a city that never quite stands still, but never seems hurried either.
The Oudegracht is the artery of the city and the first place we visit. Stately townhouses along the quay, passers-by, the workmen who always seem to be rebuilding something. The Oudegracht is large and easy to read and offers endless possibilities for light, shadow and composition. After that we walk on to the Domtuin, tucked away behind the cathedral. A place where I always stay a little too long myself: wedding photos are taken here, students pass through, tourists, people simply sitting for a while. Something is always happening.
A workshop can look like this. In the morning we focus on technique: how to read the light, what to do with texture and pattern, how to frame so that your image says more than what you see. After lunch we work on series, on holding an idea across several photos. At the end we review it over coffee or tea, and during the workshop you get assignment cards to take home and keep practising with. And afterwards you will find that Utrecht is never quite the same city again.
Antwerp - one of my favourite cities
See the dates AntwerpAntwerp street photography workshop →
Antwerp is the city I always have something to explain about. It does not open up straight away, but anyone who looks slowly is rewarded. The city glitters along the Scheldt, whispers in alleyways, and has a stubbornness about it that I find wonderful for street photography. Few cities in the Low Countries pack so much character into so few square kilometres.
We start on the Grote Markt or the Groenplaats, depending on the day and how busy it is. From there we head to the bird market, one of the liveliest places in the city, full of colour, sound and movement every Sunday. The Meir then gives you the bustle of a real shopping street, with all the human display that goes with it. And then there are the quiet courtyards, the Eilandje district with its architectural bravado, the still passages you find nowhere else.
In the workshop I teach you how to find calm in that bustle. How not to be swept along by everything happening at once, but to choose deliberately what you capture and why. We look at framing, at movement, at the moment just before and just after the perfect frame, because street photography is also about missing a great deal, and that is fine. We finish around two, which gives you time to wander through Antwerp on your own. And I would.
Nijmegen - my home city
See the dates NijmegenNijmegen street photography workshop →
Nijmegen is where I first pointed a camera at the street. I live in Wijchen, right next to Nijmegen, and I know the old centre like the back of my hand. Which is exactly why I know the places you would not normally find walking through it for the first time.
The oldest city in the Netherlands has a memory. You see it in the Stevenskerk towering over the city, in the Hessenberg that gives you a completely different perspective on the lower town, in the Waalbrug you can almost touch from the Valkhofpark. Nijmegen is compact, varied, and has a social energy I value a great deal. It is not a city for tourists, and you notice that.
We visit places I usually keep to myself. That might be the Kronenburgerpark, the streets around the market, the quays along the Waal. All depending on the weather, the size of the group and whatever occurs to me on the day. In Nijmegen you also learn how to photograph in places you may already know but never really see. That is perhaps the greatest lesson street photography can give you: that the world is more interesting than you thought, including just around the corner.
Two days · 10:00 to 15:00 · a maximum of five people
Two-day masterclass abroad
If you take two days to really learn to see a city, something happens that half a day cannot manage: you settle in. On the first day you are still warming up, still aware of your camera and of the people around you. On the second day that goes better by itself. You walk more easily, you look differently, and the photos you make are more deliberate. That is the advantage of two days.
The two-day masterclass runs from 10:00 to 15:00 each day and costs from € 695 in Paris and from € 695 in London, incl. VAT per person, including my book De Straatfotobijbel (in Dutch). You arrange travel and accommodation yourself, and I am glad to help with tips for trains and hotels. Here too the groups are a maximum of five people. After the workshop you send me up to eight photos for extensive personal feedback.
Paris street photography masterclass
Immerse yourself for two days in the most romantic and photogenic city in the world. Get lost with Michiel Heijmans.
€ 695
Including 21% VAT
€ 200 deposit when booking, total price € 695.
London street photography masterclass
London is dynamic and full of surprises. Get lost in this world city with me, Michiel Heijmans.
€ 695
Including 21% VAT
€ 200 deposit when booking, total price € 695.
Paris street photography masterclass →
Paris breathes. Not in the manner of a city trying to impress, but in the manner of a city used to itself. The light changes there by the hour, people walk with a nonchalance that is photographic gold, and the architecture always offers a context that makes your image larger than its subject alone.
On the first day we head through the north-east of the city: the Bassin de la Villette, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont and the lively Belleville quarter, where Paris is less touristic and far more honest than on the Boulevard Haussmann. We finish at the Pere-Lachaise cemetery, one of the most beautiful photographic settings in the world, with its shadows, its quiet visitors and its extraordinary light.
On the second day we visit Place Dauphine, the Jardin du Luxembourg and Île Saint-Louis, among other places. Two very different Parises in two days. Depending on the weather and circumstances, we can always choose a different route or deviate from the planned one. If you stay on for the Sunday: go to the Rue Mouffetard, where people dance in the street at noon. Highly recommended.
Paris is easy to reach by train from the Netherlands, for somewhere between 50 and 150 euro one way. Sustainable and comfortable.
Two masterclasses available in 2027
London street photography masterclass →
London is overwhelming, and that is exactly why it is such an interesting city to learn in. The city is too big to master, and that gives you a paradoxical freedom as a photographer: you simply let go and see what comes.
On the first day we start at the Barbican, one of the most remarkable architectural settings in Europe. Concrete brutalism, geometric shapes, shadows that shift all day. From the Barbican we walk via Southbank to the Thames, past the Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge, where people and light are always in motion.
On the second day we set off from Covent Garden towards Soho, Seven Dials and Oxford Street. Soho is the kind of neighbourhood where one moment there is a busker and the next someone walks past in a remarkable outfit. Oxford Street is the opposite: wide, large, busy, and full of the crowds that street photography cannot do without.
We also visit hidden gems such as Neal’s Yard and Leadenhall Market, places you will not find in every guidebook but that are photographically too good to walk past. In November London is also on the point of turning festive, which gives the light and the energy of the city a different quality.
Two masterclasses available in 2027
The one-to-one workshop
One-to-one street photography workshop →
Sometimes you simply do not want to be in a group. You have very specific questions, you have been carrying an idea around for a while but do not know how to approach it, or you just want to know how I handle certain situations and how you might do the same. That is what the one-to-one workshop is for.
We always start with coffee. Not as a courtesy, but because I genuinely want to know where you are and what you want to learn that day. Then we head into the street, both with a camera in hand, and we talk while we photograph. That way you find out how I think, what I see and why I make the choices I make. And while you photograph, I give you feedback on what you are doing straight away.
You choose the city. It does not have to be purely about street photography either, because perhaps you would rather work on street portraits, or learn to handle light better, or finally look at your own city in a different way. All of that is possible. And you can bring a friend along for free, to make it less daunting, or simply because it is more enjoyable.
The one-to-one workshop costs € 595 incl. VAT, we plan the time together, and it includes my book De Straatfotobijbel (in Dutch) and a month of access to my online street photography course on Photofacts.nl. After the workshop each of you sends me up to five photos for personal written feedback. That way you get the most out of it after the day as well.
One-to-one street photography workshop
A workshop made to measure, in the city of your choice. Bring a friend along free of charge.
€ 595
Including 21% VAT
Why you might want to come along
Honestly, that is a question I would rather have other people answer than answer myself. But I can tell you what I bring and why that is relevant to you.
I have been photographing on the street for years, in the Netherlands and in cities such as Paris, London, Prague, Hamburg, Antwerp and further afield. Not as a hobby, but as a serious pursuit that keeps surprising me. I wrote three photography books: De Wet van de Straat (in Dutch), The Observer (in English) and the course book De Straatfotobijbel (in Dutch). In 2025 I appeared as a street photography expert on the RTL 4 programme Het Perfecte Plaatje op reis. I write monthly for Photofacts and wrote columns for Focus Magazine for years. And together with my photography friend Niels de Kemp I make the podcast 30 Minuten Sluitertijd, which after more than a hundred episodes is a fixture of the Dutch and Belgian photography landscape.
I bring all that experience into the street. As someone who knows how to photograph people without them minding, or without it being noticed at all. Who knows how to work with backlight, how to freeze movement or deliberately not, how to build a composition that still holds up in ten years.
What I do not do is tell you that you got it wrong. I help you see what could be better and why. That is a difference you feel as soon as you head out. The people who join my workshops come from every corner of the Netherlands and Belgium, at every level and with every kind of camera. What they have in common is that they left home motivated, and came home more motivated still.
The workshops can be taught in Dutch or in English. A group workshop goes ahead with a minimum of two participants. Places are limited, especially for the workshops abroad, so if you are hesitating: just book.
4 spots left in Paris, 4 and 5 June
If you are hesitating: just book
Groups of five at most, including De Straatfotobijbel (in Dutch) and extensive feedback by email after the day. One day from € 295, two days from € 695.