35mm summicron

Michael is a relatively new Flickr buddy of mine, but in the six months or so that we’ve been contacts I have been drawn to his work as he approaches street photography from a different angle than most. Michael makes pictures that are as much about the street itself as the people in them. He has a high focus on the architecture surrounding the people he shoots and it works. It gives his images another dimension.

Name : Michael Toye
Location : London
Photographic Genre : Street Photography

Michael’s Bio

I am fairly sure my story isn’t too dissimilar to others. I was a long time working mushroom in the IT arena, starting as a lowly developer until I stopped working in IT, reaching the heady title of Business Analyst. Great at parties when you drop the sleep bomb that is ‘Derivatives’ and ‘Business Analyst’. My girlfriend is still in IT but we are lucky enough to be able to indulge our creative urges and for both of us it’s photography. She shoots under the waves and I on the streets. Our photography rarely clashes, though you’ll be surprised to know how few streets there are on a dive boat.

1: How and when did you discover street portraiture as your genre of photography.

My creative urges stem from a background of portraiture, employing the more traditional pencils, charcoals, acrylics and then, after a break of 10+ years, I picked up a camera. A Nikon D70.

I captured images of everything, including friends and family and was literally an unrelenting snapper, until I came across the work of Tommy Oshima. Looking at his work immediately took me back to the creative place I was as a young adult. Of course, with the camera, depth of field became a powerful tool and I could see through Tommy’s work that I could carve a style and send a message through my own images.

The D70 was definitely getting in my way and I wasn’t finding the portraits I wanted without resorting to organizing shoots, so I changed camera and settled into landscapes and architecture.

Always having an eye for composition, form, lines and never forgetting the negative space in the frame I did quite well. But I always looked to the people around me and I would try to photograph their activities around the buildings I was shooting. It wasn’t working, I still wanted to photograph people and I was intrigued how they were interacting with these buildings I had come to shoot.

This is essentially the point where I moved to street photography. After getting permission, I traded in my entire Canon gear set and ordered a Leica. I can’t escape the allure and grandiose nature of the iconic architecture in London so now I go out, armed with my Leica, and photograph people in and around these great structures and locations in London.

2: What equipment do you shoot with and why?

My girlfriend calls me a camera snob, but I put it to you that I want to take a photograph and expect a level of quality from the camera and lens. Prior to Leica I was using a Canon 5D Mark II and, for people, the 85mm f/1.2. A pretty good combination, but you are not going to get any candid shots with such a combination. If the subject doesn’t see the soul sucking front element of the 85L, they certainly hear the guillotine like snap from the mirror and shutter.

So, my only camera and lens is an M Monochrom and Summicron-M 35mm f/2.

I am lucky enough to be able to shoot steady down to 1/6s and was still carting around a tripod for wide shots. The Leica captures an unbelievably sharp image and I haven’t touched a tripod since. My default aperture is f8. If I’m zone focusing in strong light, f11. The confidence to use these apertures is also buoyed by the astonishing ISO capabilities of this camera. The noise that does appear is very elegant and I have never discarded a shot due to the presence of noise.

3: Why do you publish primarily black and white?

With a nod to a simpler life of pencils and charcoals, I have always loved the purity and honesty in black and white images. It also serves architecture extremely well. The image is reduced to texture and lines and space and there is no distraction from hues that can divert the eyes from a leading line, subject or, indeed, message. Some might argue compositions are not strong enough if color makes that difference, however, my subjective opinion is that the absence of color makes for a more effective bond between image and viewer.

4: Are you working on any projects that you have so far not published?

At the moment I am publishing images as I capture them, but I am working towards a body of work I can exhibit. They say you can spend a lifetime to really know a city, but I think street photography can make serious inroads into seeing the true soul of a place. London is well known for its skyline, but I think I can help show the people under it.

Apart from that, I’m running London based photography walking tours most weeks.

5: If you had one piece of advice for street shooters, what would it be?

I have 2.

As a street photographer:

I tend to discard any images where people have seen me take their photograph and have a negative look that reveals they really didn’t like it, whether suspicion or anger or otherwise. You can seriously reduce the frequency of this occurring.

My advice is to have an air of confidence, fake or otherwise lol. Have you noticed tourists don’t skulk. They’re genuinely interested and generally pushy. Be like a tourist; no one will notice you as you wander. When you see a shot, stand your ground and take it. If they see you, before or after the shutter, smile. I tend to turn and walk off, again like a tourist, but if they saw me, I’ll smile and wave before I leave. This works well with private land and their security, like at Canary Wharf.

For your images:

Difficult when you immediately spot a candid and just shoot but, where time allows, look at the environment, the negative space. It’s your context for the people you are photographing. I am always looking at the scene as I walk to help me prepare to place the people that I might photograph. Really helps with detecting juxtaposition too.