Nikolas Gannon

On Saturday the 21st of October, Palestine Action Group Sydney organised and hosted their second protest against the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by the Israeli government. I was in attendance of this protest with my camera at my side, and would like to share my personal beliefs surrounding the conflict, and follow this up with information about the protest and future protests by the Palestine Action Group Sydney.

This piece will focus on some of my personal beliefs surrounding the conflict. Follow up posts will continue to focus on additional points and updates. I will also discuss the Palestine Action Group Sydney and their incredible efforts to mobilise supporters of the #FreePalestine movement in Sydney.

Alright, so you want to get your street photography game up and running. What are some things to consider before getting started.

I’d like to start off with a list of things you should be doing when you start, and some things you shouldn’t do. This is just based on my own personal experience, so leave a comment below if you’d like me to address something else some other time that I may have missed. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Inspiration always has a starting point, but should never have an endpoint

Start by looking at other creators’ work on Instagram, Flickr, and other photo-sharing websites, using hashtags like #streetphotography (fun, right?) and location tags to guide you along the way. This is an easy and simple step to get your creative juices flowing, and you never know what your inspiration point will be.

Never stop looking for inspiration. Take time before and after a shoot to look at your peer’s work. See what you can improve on by looking at your own photos and comparing it to others.

Make sure to compare and critique your work to that of other creators, but don’t discount your progress afterward. Every creative journey takes time, and you can’t expect to improve overnight. Even the most experienced photographers are still learning every single day.

Research, research, research!

Like with all good things in life, content creation takes time. Put in the hard work to advance your skills and your content will improve along the way.

I will link below some of the biggest influences throughout my creative journey. Most of them don’t even specialise in street photography, but I owe a lot to them as they have taught me so much along the way.

Learning from a wide array of creators can build interest in other forms of photography too. Putting in the time to research other forms of media like video and animation content can help you improve your photography, editing, and marketing skills. Lord knows I have struggled with marketing, and I will get into that in a dedicated blog post sometime down the road.

Here are just a few of the creators I owe a lot to:

James Popsys - Awesomely inspiring landscape and travel photography videos and gear content

North Borders - Aussie, car photography, street photography, sick night shots. What more could you want?

Ted Forbes - This man is an encyclopedia for all things photography, and his content is beautifully crafted. He is clearly a student of photography before anything else

Hiroshi Hamaya - A Japense photography legend. His political photographs are incredibly shot and have been in the back of my mind when shooting protests

Bruce Gilden - If anyone is going to teach you about confidence, it’s Bruce Gilden. Realism and confrontation at its finest

Reward yourself through goal setting

Some of the goals that I set for myself on a daily shoot have reaped instant rewards, while others haven’t. Each trip out onto the streets should have one or several goals in mind. Some of my favourite shots were produced on days when I planned out exactly which photos I wanted to capture beforehand.

Below is a plan I set for myself on my notebook, which sits in my pocket all day with a pen so I can scratch each point off one by one. It helps me focus on what I want to achieve, as well as cutting down my editing time. It’s also important to note that I have found a physical notebook is easier to track your goals than apps on your phone. Each time you check your pocket, your notebook is there to help you refocus, but the same can’t be said about the distraction box nearby.

Plan Example One

go to [location]

3 photos focusing on capturing strong white light and dark shadows

3 photos have to include a person interacting with their environment

Plan Example Two

go to 3 different locations

5 photos have to include a person interacting with their environment

5 photos focusing on the architecture of the area

shoot away from the sun and avoid the skyline

Plan Example Three: plan days around social and political events in the areas you love to shoot. Apply your street photography skills to take unique photos of these events

group shots

shots of speakers

shots of protesters with signs

candid and posed photography: these events are great places to ask a person for a photo, because the vibe is usually pretty open and friendly. You will find that people are much more comfortable in this kind of setting so seeing a camera will phase less of your subjects

select images to be in black and white, and others to be in colour. Shoot with this in mind too

These are just a couple of random examples I have thrown together of what you can write in your notebook. Don’t let your plan stop you from taking a photo of something you find interesting, even if it doesn’t align with these goals, because you might end up missing the perfect shot.

Rule the gear, don’t let the gear rule you

Gear is beautiful. We all love cameras, lenses, and accessories. The way a camera looks and how they feel in your hand can influence your photography in a big way, but don’t let gear influence your entire creative journey.

Experimenting with different gear is part of the process, but don’t expect results to come simply because you’ve just purchased the best camera or lens on the market. There are absolutely zero reasons why the camera or phone you have on you now can’t be used to create inspiring content. Aim to study the basics first and grow from there.

At one point I found that my love of gear was holding back my growth as a street and landscape photographer. It affected my progress so much that I downgraded several times to force myself back into good habits. Live within your means and learn the basics before you decide to progress any further, otherwise, the joy of photography may get lost along the way.

Trust me when I say this: the excitement of new tech can wear off very quickly if you don’t put the time in to learn how to use it properly. This takes time, but 20 minutes a day of skills-based learning can do you a world of good in the long term. The brain is a muscle, and you need to exercise it regularly to work yourself up to becoming a good or even great photographer.

If you’re proud of the work you have produced, share it

This blog is a personal project. I am using it to break out of my shell and share some of my proudest photography moments that I have been too nervous to share with the world. Whether these moments are good or bad in another person’s eye, that shouldn’t hold me back from sharing work I have put hours and hours into producing.

Don’t make the same mistakes I have. I went to Japan, took some (subjectively) great photographs, and barely any of the photos have been shared out of fear of the unknown. Anxiety surrounding your work is normal, but don’t let it hold you back from sharing it on social media or your website because you’re afraid of judgment.

In my last blog post I spoke about failure and fitting in with your peers in the creative landscape. I am finally at a place where I am comfortable to share some of my creative road bumps and speak on the process to improve my photography

When I got my first real camera, I expected instant results. Safe to say they didn’t come, and every time I look back on my trip to New Zealand I regret not putting in more effort before I went on this trip.

I was driven towards photography after excitement and inspiration from a photograph I took while in Bali. I didn’t know how to take photos yet, I had just accidentally taken a cool photo that eventually inspired me to look further into the art form. I wasn’t a particularly artistic teenager, so stepping into photography was strange but exciting. It also wasn’t something I thought would require as much hard work as it did.

Reacting to moments of inspiration isn’t a bad thing, but it may build a false sense of security. I was convinced that I would get my new camera and I would instantly know how the settings worked, have an understanding of composition, and have pro-edit skills (because how hard can it really be?). I went from taking one simple, slightly artistic photo on my phone to believing I was going to be a Master of Photography. My naivety took me for a ride in New Zealand gave me a kick in the backside I desperately needed to improve.

The truth is that I was lost when I got my first camera. I hadn’t dedicated time towards learning anything about photography. I was utterly clueless. This resulted in a really poor shooting experience while in New Zealand, and I regret not taking the time to learn how it worked before I set off on my trip. 

I didn’t yet understand the functions of my camera, which ultimately took away from focusing on real compositions. To this day, I have not found a single RAW file from the two-week trip that I want to go back and edit. It was rough. 

Welcome back my fellow street photographers. I’ve lacked inspiration for this blog the last couple of weeks, which has been a regular occurrence while traveling on my creative journey.

The most important to remember is that your timeline is unique, and no two people will ever experience the same levels of motivation and creativity at the same time.

Your personal life, career path, societal pressures (COVID-19 and lockdowns, for example) can all affect your journey and can have a strong impact on whether you decide to go pro in a creative field or only practice art as a medium for expression.

While this is a photography-based blog, the tips below should apply to all creative fields. My goal in this article is to hopefully offer you some reassurance and remind you that nothing is ever concrete. You never know where life will take you so remember to relax, enjoy everything as it comes, and you will work out the steps to becoming a better artist along the way. A lot of mistakes will be made along the way but if you prioritise your enjoyment, you should see success sooner rather than later.

Get used to failure and re-evaluate your goals

You might find yourself at times envying or becoming jealous of creatives who have made it big, have done something you haven’t, or seem to have figured it all out. What most of these creatives will tell you is that they have made the exact same mistakes you have, that it’s not as easy as it looks and that not everyone will get to their level. Social medias a great place to promote your work and to gain recognition, but it can also breed a lot of negative self-thought on what you have made, what you can make and what your limit is.

The worst thing to do is convince yourself that because you aren’t at the level of someone like Peter McKinnon that you’re unsuccessful. Peter has said in his YouTube videos on multiple occasions how many times he changed career path, failed, altered his goals and did things that were uncomfortable for him to get to that level.

When I first started doing professional work, I hated some of the photos I was producing, but as each project was completed, I found myself getting more comfortable, working out the kinks, and finding out what worked for me and what didn’t work for me… and then there would be another setback. Suddenly, I’d have to learn something new again, I worked out the kinks, and then this cycle continued. This happens A LOT.

After lockdown #2 in Sydney, I decided my best way forward was to drop pro-work for the time being and focus on content I actually wanted to produce (which is how this blog came to be as I fall back into the street photography game). I have adjusted my goals and guess what – I am again failing! I haven’t been consistent with how many articles I write and put out and that annoys me, but I understand that it’s a part of the process. I know I will learn new ways of motivating myself to write and will eventually pick up a regular routine, but it’s about putting in the work, accepting my failures, and re-evaluating my creative goals at each point.

Get used to imposter syndrome – it’s inevitable

Every creator has felt it at some point – that anxiety you get when you post an Instagram photo with every tag possible just to get some exposure or posting something and wondering if it’s going to be well received or not, and then being disappointed when you get 5 likes on a photo you think is good.

Don’t let Instagram or other social media platforms define your idea of success. You need to look at each post as a moment in your own creative timeline because your audience will constantly shift. You never know if or when you will get noticed so take every moment as either a moment of success or as a learning opportunity.

It's also important to remember that marketing your products is a game, which I have approached differently at every level. I have learned a lot through failure, and I no longer see it as a personal attack on myself if my work doesn’t reach an audience. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue with what you’re doing because eventually, you’ll find comfort in the process.

I don’t think anyone has documented Sydney’s Chinatown as extensively as I have. I know, I know, it’s an odd boast, but anyone who wants to fight me on this claim can do so in the comments. I’m free game. I hope to find someone who’s spent more time and effort in this one location than me. It’s doubtful, but I believe in you Sydney. I believe.

Joke’s aside, I am making this blog to hopefully spark some interest among Sydney-siders to go out and explore your streets and capture what you see. Beaches are beautiful and everyone knows that. I love and appreciate landscape photography as much as the next guy, but no one can deny that the most interesting part of photography is realism, and no other genre of photography feels more *real” to me than street photography. Even the streets surrounding a beach can be filled with so much untapped life - just get out and run with it!

Street photography can be fun, exciting, random, political, artistic, boring as all hell! It can be whatever you want it to be and that’s why I love every aspect of it. The process of stepping out into new or unfamiliar territory, knowing that you’ll run into something or someone you’ve seen a hundred times before or never in your entire life, is challenging but rewarding.

It’s all about embracing the random… Even posed photographs of complete strangers can feel candid at the moment because you’re exposing the random nature of human interactions. A man came up to me today in Haymarket, started singing something relating to Buddhist spirituality, and then proceeded to take off his shirt, pick up a National Geographic and pose on top of one of the Chinese guardian lions lining one of Dixon Street’s famous Paifangs (Chinese-style gates).

Did I ask him to? Of course not! My anxious brain was thinking “what the hell is happening?!”. But rather than pushing this eccentric guy away and asking him to chill the eff’ out, I ended up having one of my favourite photographic memories to date. It’s all about embracing the random and letting yourself just be in the moment, and that’s what is so bloody awesome about street photography.

What can street photography do for you as a photographer? When I got my first camera in 2018, my photos were honestly really bad. I left New Zealand with one photo that I was sort of happy with. ONE. In one of the most beautiful countries on the planet. I hadn’t put the time or effort into knowing how to use my camera, make compositions, and edit. I was completely lost with way too much confidence in my own inexistent ability. Street photography changed quite a lot for me as a photographer and allowed me the confidence to eventually step into paid gigs and volunteer photography jobs.

Your first step is to learn that you will suck major ass when you first start your street photography journey. If anyone reading this is an experienced photographer then I am sure you can attest to that, regardless of what genre of photography you really enjoy.

Make sure you set small goals for yourself and don’t put too much pressure on yourself early on. You will learn a lot with time, so here are some of the things that really helped me improve:

Going out to the same location over and over again (Chinatown for me) and shooting the same photo over and over and over and over and over again. You will learn how to get the best possible compositions if you try this. The best example for me is Chinatown’s famous clown guy who I have shot 50 times over and now I get a new picture I love nearly every time I see him

Talk to people! If you see a busker, have a chat and get to know who they are. In a few short minutes you can learn a lot about someone and how they got to where they are. Once you see them again, you’ll take a different photo every time and their comfort around the camera will grow ten-fold because you have already established a relationship with the subject. Forming a relationship with your subject can offer some awesome opportunities to practice composition. Once you have a good understanding of composition and framing your subject, you’ll find yourself keeping more photos than you would of when you first started your photography journey.

Find your editing style by editing the same image in 5 different ways. This is a great exercise I wished I had started earlier because I wasn’t critical enough of my own work. Looking back I would keep way too many photos that were ruined by bad editing, and then share them on my Instagram account. Now I don’t post nearly enough because I am maybe too critical. I promise there are more great photos coming dudes, bare with me as I am on my own journey myself and poor editing is a big reason why I have not posted so many pictures!

Stick with it. I will admit that street photography is very mentally challenging but keep on going back to the same spots and trying because someday soon it will be worth it. You’ll get there, just know that mistakes are good and you will keep picking up new skills as you go along. As clichè as it sounds - never give up.

An excerpt of this blog post was originally posted on the website BOOOOOOOM and can be found here. I wanted to share it here as it definitely qualifies for this blog, and I put in a lot of time writing this before realising there was an 840-character limit.

It was around 5 am and I hadn’t slept the whole night. The hypomanic fixation with photography I have experienced over the last few weeks had kept me awake through the night, but I wasn’t even close to being tired. After inhaling some caffeine, I decided to go to a trusty photo location in Sydney - Haymarket. Haymarket is home to Sydney’s largest Chinatown and the biggest demonstration of Chinese cultural influence in Australia since the 1920s.

That is until I was approached by the Man From Canton, asking me to take a photo of him with his iPhone. I happily complied and even asked for a shot with my own camera, he gleefully said yes and I got a few portrait shots in front of the paifang. We exchanged a few words - he told me he was born in Canton in China and had arrived in Sydney 38 years ago. He now lived in Adelaide but was staying at the nearby casino as he planned to visit his 95-year-old mother in Sydney.

As we ordered and waited for our food we got to talking again. He explained how he had travelled to Australia in the 1980s and had worked and owned a store in Ashfield, just around the corner from my house. He went on to describe his busy work schedule and how important the money he made in Australia was to assisting his family back home.

What stood out to me was what he shared with me about Chinatown. There was sadness in his tone as he described the isolation of Chinese Australians in this part of the city when he arrived in Australia, and how they were the victims of constant hate crimes by white Australians.

He explained that Chinese people (who were mostly of Cantonese descent throughout the 1900s) had been forced to divide themselves from white Australia as a matter of protection. There were no English signs and posters surrounding the Chinatown streets, no night markets where people of all walks of life gathered to watch live performances and eat a wide range of culturally diverse foods, and there was definitely no way a white photographer from the suburbs could walk through streets of Haymarket on his camera at 6:30 in the morning.

While I have walked through these streets I have never stopped and asked “how did this area come to be?”. How did the Emperor’s Garden on Dixon Street grow to be so large? Why are these buildings designed the way they are, and why are they all faded? I have so many questions, and as a photographer and historian, I will continue to search for these answers.

I have been trying to learn more about Chinatown from the locals, and while this man wasn’t living in Chinatown at the moment his perspective and insight into the history of Chinatown were surprising, to say the least. This was the first time that I had realised that Chinatown, like anywhere with a rich cultural heritage, has had to go through its own social and cultural development in a predominantly white country that was ultimately against its success. I was completely aware of the racism experienced by so many non-white Australians in other communities of Sydney, yet I was naive to think that Chinatown’s shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and long-time residents have experienced anything but racism while building this beautifully diverse area.

So to the Man From Canton, I say thank you. Thank you for opening up about your experiences, and opening my eyes to something I was too blind to see. As a photographer, I always try to capture the essence of a location, but until I allow myself to understand the area’s origins and history, the photos I have taken in Chinatown will remain soulless.