Street Photography in Paris and Lyon: 10 Must-Try Creative Ways to Capture Culture
Originally published November 7, 2024
Notre-Dame under repair from the devastating fire in 2019 (Note: As of December 7, 2024, the Notre-Dame reopened to the public). Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
When I am engaged in photography assignments for a non-profit or other humanitarian cause, I usually have a pretty clear advance plan for what I intend to capture and the particular story that needs to be told. In fact it can be done quite methodically using my Humanitarian Photo Brief.
This said, you never know what the universe will present to you if you are prepared and preparation means practice. I also find that any assignment or personal project is significantly more successful and infinitely more fun when I am not too rigid and remain open to what serendipity might present. Sometimes the wonderful stories in life simply cannot be anticipated.
Street Photography
A great way to practice a wide range of photographic technique is on the streets. Street photography, for most people is relatively easy to access and integrates travel photography, cultural photography, humanity photography and photojournalism all rolled into one.
It can be, or should be, unique to the locale that you are shooting in. You certainly wouldn’t want the street photos of Paris to look like those from New York or Los Angeles, so fully embrace and capture the elements that show not only our universal humanity, but also our rich cultural differences.
Celebrating humanity in photography
Capturing authentic human moments is about more than pressing a button—it’s about being observant, connecting with people, and finding the unique layers that tell a story. Whether you’re in a bustling city or a quiet village, practicing techniques that deepen the humanity in your photography can add both purpose and soul to your work.
Here are ten things to try in your street photography that will help you capture the spirit and story of the people around you.
Street Photography for your Trip to Paris
In late October of 2024, I had the opportunity to practice the ideas summarized below while exploring the streets of Paris and Lyon, France. I worked to stay alert and exercise these approaches to make it more fun in my quest for creative shots - and practicing ideas that will undoubtedly enhance my photography in cultural and humanitarian service projects as well as in other arenas and venues.
As we begin a new year, many are starting to think about travel plans for 2025. Here I summarize, and then expand on, top ten ideas I was experimenting with during my trip that you might want to try out!
Perhaps you will create your own list of approaches to consider the next time you are shooting in a new location whether your photography is focused on street photography, during a cultural tour, or on assignment as a humanitarian photographer.
Enjoy!
Steven
Street Photography Tips and Ideas
Strike Up Conversations: Chat with locals to learn their stories, then capture portraits. You'll end up with photos that feel more personal and insightful, and you'll likely make some friends along the way.
Set a Theme, like Shooting Through Windows: Choose a specific theme, like photographing people through windows or doorways. This adds depth to your shots and provides a unifying layered feel to the series.
Play with Reflections: Look for reflections in windows, puddles, mirrors, or metal surfaces. They add depth and create a duality in the scene that’s captivating.
Look for People Moving into the Light: Find spots where natural light creates dramatic contrast. Capture people as they step into these illuminated areas, creating striking images that emphasize form and emotion.
Use Shadows Creatively: Experiment with long shadows, harsh lighting, or abstract shapes to bring drama to your images. Shadows can add mood, depth, and visual interest, especially during golden hour.
Shoot into the Sun: Embrace backlighting and lens flares by shooting directly into the sun. This technique can create dreamy, atmospheric shots that evoke warmth or nostalgia.
Embrace the Weather: Don’t let rain, fog, or even harsh sunlight deter you! Each weather condition has its own unique qualities and can set a distinctive mood. Rain, for instance, adds reflections and softens light, while fog brings mystery.
Embrace Serendipity: Be open to unplanned moments and chance encounters. Some of the best shots come when you least expect them, so go with the flow and follow the energy of the street.
Shoot Silhouettes: Use strong backlighting to create silhouettes of people or objects, adding a sense of mystery and drama to your photos.
Try Panning for Motion: Follow a moving subject (like a cyclist or a pedestrian) with your camera to blur the background while keeping the subject sharp. It adds energy and makes the viewer feel like they’re part of the action.
Personal Connections
1. Strike Up Conversations
Walking past a small salon in the Montmartre district of Paris, I couldn’t help but notice this coiffeur, Sebastien, playing a pocket trumpet in the window of his shop between appointments. He heartily agreed to engage in a portrait.
I wanted to capture the spontaneity of the encounter and his warm spirit with the rich context of his salon. The image becomes a story of his everyday life and hidden passion, captured in a single, authentic moment.
Sebastien, a coiffeur in the Montmontre district of Paris, unwinds with his pocket trumpet between clients. Paris, France. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Choosing a Theme for Culture Photos
2. Set a Theme
One rainy day, as I experimented with street photography in Paris, I decided that I would try as many ways as possible to photograph through glass. Capturing images through glass can add layers and depth, blending reflections, light, and context to tell rich stories. The glass can symbolize separation from the outside world or the opposite. You can use reflections to merge different perspectives, while various types of glass, like rain-streaked or frosted, set the mood—whether it’s introspective, mysterious, or vibrant.
Moments where people interact with the glass, such as touching or looking through it, feel intimate and personal, and the light and shadows cast through windows can add unique textures and warmth to transform everyday scenes with a deeper sense of storytelling.
A curious Parisian cat watches the passersby in Montmontre. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
A local boulangerie in Montmartre at dusk. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Eiffell Tower through glass on a rainy day. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Reflections to Provide Duality of Perspective
3. Playing with Reflections
When engaging in street photography, look for reflections in windows, puddles, mirrors, or metal surfaces. Creating images using reflections opens a unique perspective on the world around us by adding depth, intrigue, and a sense of duality to photography, transforming ordinary scenes into more compelling compositions and invites viewers to engage with the image on multiple levels.
This technique encourages experimentation with angles, framing, and timing, allowing cultural photographers to discover new narratives within otherwise familiar settings.
Reflections of the street in Lyon, France. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Capture The Spirit of Humanity
4. Look for People Moving into the Light
Some photographers coach to follow the light. While I agree that recognizing the quality and location of light is important, it means so much more in humanity photograhy when a person is illuminated in it.
Photographing people as they move into the light reveals a dynamic interplay between shadow and illumination, capturing moments of transition that often go unnoticed.
Such images can resonate with a sense of hope and possibility, as subjects step from the obscurity of shadow into the clarity of daylight. Such moments can invite viewers to reflect on their own paths and the light that guides them.
This seemed especially relevant as I watched this young man carrying his son head towards the pocket of light within the amazing and ancient Saint Severin Church in Paris.
Father carries his young son within the ancient halls of Saint Severin Church. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Shadows as a Creative Elements in Photography
Image of the Eiffel Tower from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
5. Use Shadows Creatively
In street photography use shadows to add depth, contrast, and intrigue to your images.
Sometimes by repositioning your subject in relation to light sources, you can create dynamic compositions that draw the viewer’s eye.
Experimenting with different times of day and angles can reveal unique shadow patterns that enrich your photographs and tell a more engaging story.
In the example here from my street photography in Paris, the long shadow of the Eiffel Tower across the cityscape was present for just a few brief moments in the morning before the sun was again enshrouded by clouds and the image was gone.
It was a serendipitous combination of weather and timing that made this possible and even more effective due to the mix of light and clouds that were present that day.
Of course what was also critical was moving quickly after seeing the interplay of light and quick action to capture the phenomenon before it vanished.
Go Against the Flow and Shoot Into the Sun!
6. Shoot into the Sun.
Counterintuitive for most photographers, this encapsulates the idea of capturing the brilliance and energy of the sun, which can serve as a metaphor for hope, inspiration, and the pursuit of light.
This concept invites photographers to experiment with bold angles and intense contrasts, utilizing the sun’s natural light to create images to evoke emotions and tell stories that resonate with viewers, illustrating the beauty that can emerge when one dares to aim for the brightest source of illumination in their work.
Important to me is that the image is not about the sun itself, but the light that it manifests on your subject. It seems like the perfect way to capture what is a rather typical scene on the canals of St Germain in Paris.
Young people relax, share conversation and drinks on the bank of the canals in Saint Germaine. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Embrace Bad Weather (or Pray for Clouds and Rain)
7. Embrace the Weather
As the noted photographer Sam Abell often quotes “bad weather makes good pictures” and I agree.
Embracing the weather during street photography can lead to unique and compelling images that capture a unique mood and the moment. Rain, fog, or breaking sunlight can dramatically alter the mood and atmosphere of a photograph. Each weather scenario presents an opportunity to tell a different story, showcasing the dynamic relationship between nature and the subjects within the frame.
Here, I loved the soft, diffused light, that was present outside the Louvre in Paris during a rain shower, enhancing the contrast and adding a sense of intimacy with this woman walking alone across the plaza.
A lone woman in front of the Louvre during a rain storm. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
Play with Silhouettes
Silhouette in front of clock at the Musee D’Orsey. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
8. Shooting silhouettes
Shooting silhouettes is a variation of shooting into the light and can create striking images that emphasize shape and form against a stark blown-out background.
The clock at the Musee D’Orsey, even if over-photographed, remains an iconic image and carries a compelling sense of timelessness and intrigue. Its a timeless example of a perfect application of silhouette (as this exposure blows out the outside cityscape which was clearly visible to the human eye.
Prepare for, and Embrace, Serendipity
9. Embrace Serendipity
Embracing serendipity in street photography invites unexpected moments to shape the narrative of an image.
When photographers remain open to spontaneity, they often capture fleeting scenes that might otherwise go unnoticed, revealing beauty in the ordinary. This unplanned approach encourages a deeper connection with the environment and subjects, allowing the photographer to respond intuitively to the world around them.
While I love the methodology of selecting a scene and waiting for something to happen, sometimes it’s pure serendipity that provides the opportunity.
Planning for humanitarian assignments is critical but sometimes compelling stories are written not just through intent, but through chance encounters and unexpected circumstances.
Youth in Vieux Lyon delights in surprising tourists on the street below. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Lyon, France, 2024
Capture Motion and Dynamic Tension in your Cultural Images though Panning
10. Panning for Motion
Panning is a photographic technique that involves moving the camera in synchronization with a moving subject to create a sense of motion while keeping the subject in focus. This captures the essence of the subject, such as a runner, a cyclist or a speeding vehicle, against a blurred background to convey speed.
To achieve effective panning, a slower shutter speed is used (example below 1/20 second), allowing the background to streak while maintaining clarity on the subject. Mastering panning requires practice and precision, as the photographer must anticipate the subject's movement and execute the camera motion smoothly to produce images that resonate with energy and motion.
Panning is a photographic technique that involves moving the camera in synchronization with a moving subject to create a sense of motion while keeping the subject in focus. Finding a great background also adds to the effectiveness of the technique.
I spent some time along the banks of the Seine panning to create images of cyclists and runners. I find that the most compelling images contain a background that is soft to evoke a strong sense of movement yet remains at least conceptually identifiable.
Cyclist along the banks of the Seine. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Paris, France, 2024
The Spirit of Photographing Humanity
Working with such techniques (and others) will not only enhance your technical skill but prepare you to capture the light, the spirit, the stories, and above all the humanity of the people and places you photograph and ensure there is variety in the notes stuck by your images.
With each shot, you may find yourself feeling surprised and excited about connecting more deeply with the world around you, creating street photography images that are unique and resonate with greater emotion and meaning.
Whether you’re capturing everyday street scenes for fun or on assignment for non-profit photography or other humanitarian service projects, these techniques can transform everyday moments into powerful, story-driven images that celebrate the richness of human life everywhere.
In 2025, I will expand on these ideas and others when I lead a photography workshop in India for aspiring Indian photographers interested in non-profit photography and in becoming a humanitarian photographer for philanthropic causes. I’ll provide more info about this exciting development as we get closer.