Hi Michael!
Not long ago I've discovered you and your photography (through a Flickr tag by Patrick Joust :) ) and I was immediately amazed and fascinated by your esthetic style. I love the apparent simplicity and the cleanliness of the composition, the way you manage to present as interesting a boring subject. The portraits in the street are stunning, both in terms of the subject's attitude and the pictures' colors; I'm impressed by the natural look, white balance and colors, that also seems so filmic; great edit!
Would be to much to ask what are your guidelines when framing empty streets / building? And can you reveal some ingredients of your editing?
Thanks a lot! Keep up the lovely work, cheers from Eastern Europe!
Hi there,
First, thank you—truly—for taking the time not just to look at my work, but to reach out with such thoughtful questions. It’s humbling that you'd devote any of your attention to my photography, and I can't say thank you enough. Sharing the city I love with others is a joy, and I’m grateful it resonated with you. I’m also honored to be photographed by Patrick Joust. He’s a dear friend and someone I deeply enjoy exploring Baltimore with. That his work could serve as a passage to mine feels like a real privilege.
I’ve written elsewhere that I view the camera as more than a tool for documentation. I use my camera as an invitation—to the world and to others—to engage. That sense of receptivity is central to how I work. Whether I’m photographing a portrait, a landscape, or some combination of the two, my first guideline is simply to be present. I try not to approach with a checklist or preconceived notions. Doing so risks missing what the world is offering at that moment, be it subtle or strange, quiet or sublime.
My second guideline is this: never punch down. I try to use the camera to relate, not to narrate or dictate. When I photograph strangers or their environments, I see it as an opportunity to build empathy and to better understand that which I don’t already know. If I happen to be in a disinvested neighborhood or photographing people going through hard times, I aim first to earn their consent, and then to represent not the hardship itself, but the human behind it. I try to highlight dignity rather than dramatize suffering. I’m also keenly aware of my own privilege—that I get to walk away from a given scene or story, while the subject might not. With that in mind, I strive to approach every interaction with respect, grace, and a bit of levity. These are real people, not characters. That is foundational to my artistic approach.
On a technical note, I shoot with a Canon 6D paired with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART lens. That focal length works well for me in tight urban corridors and unpredictable light, and it strikes a strong balance for the kind of environmental portraiture I prefer—wide enough to frame some context, close enough to keep the subject grounded and present.
When I photograph buildings or street scenes, I often shoot from a medium distance. I like to place the subject in relationship with its surroundings. I’m drawn to contradiction, irony, and the unexpected: a grand car parked in front of a row of identical homes, or a burst of color from an overly lit storefront in an otherwise empty lot. I tend to see the world with the openness of a transcendentalist and the disposition of an absurdist. That is perhaps chiefly why I love photographing Baltimore. It’s a city in extremis, and it rarely fails to deliver.
As for editing, I’ll be honest. I’d much rather be outside shooting than in front of a computer. I suffer from terrible decision paralysis, and I find the infinite sliders of modern processing software more draining than liberating. That said, I shoot in RAW for the flexibility and detail, and I do my editing in DxO PhotoLab 8. I’ve tried Lightroom, Capture One, ON1, and a handful of open-source tools, but PL8 fits my style best. It helps me get to a final image efficiently, with minimal fuss.
My workflow is fairly straightforward. I ingest, cull, and tag everything in PhotoMechanic—sometimes cutting a hundred shots down to just three or four. Then I open those images in PhotoLab, where I apply a minimalist preset I made that:
Uses the DxO Neutral color rendering as a base
Applies the Portra 160 VC LUT from the (free!) G'MIC collection at 40% opacity
Reduces vignetting and sharpness for a softer, less “processed” look
Uses DxO’s excellent DeepPRIME engine to denoise high ISO shots
Adds the faintest trace of film grain—barely visible in JPEGs, but it gives a little texture in print
I try to keep the look subtle and restraint-driven. My hope is that the images hold a kind of stylized clarity without tipping into anything flashy or artificial. Ideally, I’d like them to age gracefully.
Thank you again for the generosity of your note. If anything I’ve shared here is informative, then I am glad.
All the best,
mw
