Blog – Loïc Magnien Street Photography

Meet the Canon A-1 : The unbreakable mould of modern cameras

Back in 1978, canon launched their Canon A-1 film camera. The first camera to propose multiple functions in terms of metering like shutter speed priority, Aperture priority, Manual and finally the first of its kind full auto Program mode including a Flash mode as well. The new standard for consumer photography was born. 41 Years…

The Truth About Planned Obsolescence

I hear plenty of people talking about their phones, computers and even cameras getting slow, not being as fast as the first days or event not working anymore ! Most of them, including my friends think it’s due to planned obsolescence… that is the manufacturer company’s policy of planning or designing a product with an…

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PhotoLinker : A replacement for Lightroom Map Module

If you are like me and like to organise your photos, chances are you like to geotag them so you can share them on map to your friends. You can check this post on the way I used to geotag my photos … but that’s was the good old days. Bye Bye Lightroom 5 Map Module Adobe…

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Fujifilm X100F Product Photography – HatchWatches

About HatchWatches In this tutorial I am going to take a very practical example, the product photography for the HatchWatches Original collection. HatchWatches is a brand I founded with my partner Catherine Stolarski. At HatchWatches, our timepieces are designed to last and to surprise you with new moiré and cross-hatching patterns every time you look…

Don’t take photos of visual scenes

Visual scenes You go to a photography exhibition, the layout of the frames on the wall is visually pleasing, you want to take a picture of it, don’t. Visual scenes are anything setup for you to enjoy with your eyes, it could be a live music venue with nice lighting for the show, a theatre…

On sharing your photos

Never share in the moment Whenever I travel or have a walk in my neighbourhood, I will take pictures. However I will never share them straight away, that’s because I mostly shoot with my camera and not my phone. When you shoot with you phone, you probably have a data plan on it, allowing you…

Ray Schinnery is a Master Showman

Under New York and Southern Influence Ray Schinnery is a New York City-based blues guitarist, songwriter and singer, a multi-talented musician dedicated to keeping Blues alive. Ray was born in the Virgin Islands and raised in New York City, at an early age his uncle made a guitar, put it in his hands and that…

Finding Joe Corbin

Joe Corbin in a nutshell Joe Corbin is a Blues/Soul man that : Grew up in the Channels Islands Started playing and song writing when he was 15 Moved to Brighton to go to the Music College at age 18 Moved to London in 2011 Since then Joe plays all around London and you will…

Street Photographer’s EDC

The Bag First thing first, I use the Peak Design 5L Sling bag. It’s not too bad looking, water resistant and with several years of Tetris mastery I manage to fit all my gear in it : It comes with folding separating flaps that you can organise the way you want thanks to a pretty…

About Portable Photo Printers

Progress In recent years, progress has been made in printing technologies. So much progress that you are now able to print your own photos, within a minute, from a device which fits inside your pocket… and with no ink cartridge thanks to ZINK paper technology ! You can have a smartphone in one pocket and…

About Lens Filters

Post Process it With recent softwares you can absolutely apply filters to your photos in post processing however some filters can’t be reproduced digitally yet, hopefully machine learning will help with it in the future. The filters you can reproduce depend on the software you are using but most of the colour filters are totally…

Fujifilm X100F 24mm Converter

Fujifilm Way of Life The fujifilm X100F is a versatile compact camera that comes with a fixed 35mm lens. It can feel too constraining for some photographers. So Fujifilm offers two adapters, a ‘Wide Converter’ (WCL) which gives a 28mm equivalent and a ‘Tele Converter’ (TCL) which gives a 50mm equivalent. They come pros like…

The 9 Benches of Little Odessa

1970’s – Brighton Beach Located south of Brooklyn in New York, became a popular place to settle for the Soviet immigrants, mostly Jews from Russia and Ukraine. So many ex-Soviets immigrated to Brighton Beach that the area became known as “Little Odessa”, named after the Ukrainian city on the Black Sea. 1990’s – Little Odessa…

BSP – S01E02 – Superposition 101

This video is the second episode of my ‘Being Street Photographer’ series: ‘BEING STREET PHOTOGRAPHER’ SERIES ‘Being Street Photographer’ is a series of practical situation filmed through a GoPro setup on top of my camera for a first person POV experience. SUPERPOSITIONS In this episode I demonstrate the basics of superposition and…

BSP – S01E01 – The 360° Technique

This video is the first episode of my ‘Being Street Photographer’ series: ‘BEING STREET PHOTOGRAPHER’ SERIES ‘Being Street Photographer’ is a series of practical situation filmed through a GoPro setup on top of my camera for a first person POV experience. THE 360° TECHNIQUE In this episode I demonstrate the 360° technique. the…

Floating Bike Repairs

Cycling the regent’s Canal Cycling along the canal can be a very good way to spend a sunny day in London. One can cycle a 10 miles journey from Paddington Basin in the West of London to Limehouse Link in the East. Going through Little Venice (the meeting point between the Regent’s and Paddington Arm…

Dare to Shoot

They are always bad shots Some of them you can feel them straight as you click the shutter. Some others you will think are good and will notice your framing is not perfect. Light was wrong. Overexposed, underexposed. Not in focus. So many things could go wrong because of technical matters. they are always bad…

Shoot How You Feel

“Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph” – Andre Kertesz Use blur Shooting blurry is quite easy, just refer to “le manuel de la photo raté” (the user guide of the failed photograph) by Thomas Lélu. OK, now just take your focus mode, set it to manual, take your lens focus…

Document your own life

The importance of family Having a family is a chance we need to be aware of. Having your mother, father, brother, grand father, all of them together, alive and together is pretty rare. Being aware of it makes you realise that your own family is a pretty good subject for your photography, after all, there…

Photograph the same subject

Series always have a bigger impact on your audience. Human like repetitive patterns. There are different ways of creating a repetitive pattern and build series. Photograph the same subject The first way is to photograph the same subject in different environments that look alike. Here is an example, using the same framing method. Staircases in…

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Get Closer

If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough Robert capa When you start street photography, you are shy and not confident. One mistake we all make is to not get close enough to our subjects. Fear is not an excuse We have all fears. They make you fill uncomfortable about the situation, they make…

Shoot Plenty More

Don’t think you got it yet. Sometimes you’ll just walk the street and see an amazing scene and start shooting. How to know when you have the good photo ? With experience you know it as you click it but that won’t happen tomorrow if you barely use your camera. When I started I went…

Shoot for Yourself

Life Lessons Photography can teach you so many lessons worth applying to your life. You life can teach you lessons worth applying to your photography. Leaving in London taught me to accept other lifestyles. In big cities you meet a lot of people with very different backgrounds and different aspirations in life, the worst you…

A Simpler Workflow

Workflow is key to consistency. A good one includes a clean folder structure, a quick import, edit and export, and backup. We all know that backing up your final work on a hard drive is not sustainable on the long run as it can become expensive when you reach few terabytes of data. Along the…

1 Camera + 1 Lens + 1 Year

You can take it as a challenge or a philosophy. During the past year I ditched out all my DSLR gear, including a Full frame camera and 6+ lenses. Instead I bought a compact camera with a fixed 35mm lens. At the beginning I’d regret to give up on all the versatility that my gear…

Blurriness and Sensations

I need to get this new Canon L series lens with extreme sharpness ! Nope you don’t. Sharpness has become a sell argument, it is arbitrary and totally overrated. Instead of spending hours online looking at the latest DxO mark while comparing lenses, do yourself a favour, grab your camera and go shoot blurry pictures!…

Be a Street Photographer

Going out to shoot street photography is my number one favourite thing to do as it blends two things I like, (1) making photos and (2) wandering in the streets. It might seems super simple at first, it’s all about taking your camera out and taking pictures while walking in the street but as you guessed,…

New York » 2 Weeks to eat the Big Apple

In September 2017 we spent two weeks in New York City. Two weeks is plenty of time to explore Manhattan and its surrounding neighbourhoods. I will share with you the highlights of the trip and some tips. We landed on a Saturday evening right on time to spot a nice sunset and have a glance…

Kendrick Lamar’s Loyalty Hidden Meaning

Music videos are usually a promotional tool that help with the diffusion of the media: the Music. I feel they are most of the time very limiting and that they frame your imagination. Kendrick Lamar’s music videos are the opposite, they open you to a new dimension! Check out this video of the Nerdwriter on…

Amazing Freckles Amy Contact Sheet

Today I was at Highbury and Islington station, on the platform, waiting for my overground when I noticed that really good-looking-red-hair-lady wearing a black and white dotted dress, black high heels and black purse that suited her freckles perfectly! I have not been brave enough to take her portrait nor ask her to pose at…

The Photography of Daisies

Daisies (1966) is a movie by Vera Chytilova that could be defined as abstract, infantile and perhaps intellectual? I watched it on the roof top of a friend in East London after being recommended by that Czech patriot! We had a wonderful time with a proper BBQ and the projection was a quite immersive experience. Daisies…

Street Photography : Know Your Rights

As a photographer, you need to know your rights when it comes to street photography. The other day I was shooting in East London for one of my photography projects when this conversation happened. To make it simple, I was shooting a ice cream van and its queue of people waiting to be served. The…

‘Photo Wait’ MasterClass

“Photo Wait” is one discipline of street photography and a very effective way to make good street photography images. The purpose is to find a nice spot with an interesting background and wait for something to happen. This method is one of my favourites, however it requires some preparation but not too much as some nice…

How to make your website faster?

There is nothing complicated in setting your own website from scratch. However it can become super overwhelming and not really straight forward as very few web developers have interest in posting proper content on the topic. I will walk you through the things I learnt along the way in terms of setting up a website…

Wolfgang Tillmans Exhibition

Wolfgang Tillmans is a German fine-art photographer well known for his intimate still-lifes, portraits and also for other images that address vital political issues. I went to his exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. The installation is well staged, there is a lot of material presented from his beginnings, abstractions, table works, videos and books.…

David Hockney Exhibition

Can we say it: David Hockney is a good photographer? Yes we can. Last weekend I have been to the exhibition of David Hockney at Tate Britain. David Hockney is one of these artist that can be as disappointing as marvelous. I have been disappointed by his most well known piece “Portrait of an Artist (Pool…

Fujifilm X100F Weatherproof Hack

We all know it, there is no weatherproof camera even though some are more protected than other against water. One drawback of the Fujifilm X100F is that it totally lacks any kind of weatherproofing. This might be due to the construction of the Fujinon 23mm lens with the leaf shutter and ND filter. You can…

Buy Books Not Gear!

It took me a while to figure it out but books will make you a better photographer than gear. Since 2008 I have been buying new gear, digital cameras, lenses, analog cameras, film, filters, flashes, more filters, more lenses, upgrade of it all, repeat. I was teaching myself with tutorials and technical booklets on how to…

Edition Workflow (iPhone + Fujifilm X100F)

I like to pack light when I go somewhere new as the less thing I have the less I am worried in general. I also tend to simplify the things I have and to buy good design, better quality, well built and durable items. This apply for any of my purchases however there is always…

iPhonography

The best camera is the one which you always carry. This is true. I got my first iPhone back in 2008 with the second generation iPhone 3GS (by the way, never buy a first generation technology). This phone just changed my relationship to personal photography. Even if at that time the iPhone was only able to…

Geotagging Photos Workflow

We are in 2017, images are no longer in a paper printed album getting dusty on a shelf, images are in your phone, shared on displays, as you tell your story in a coffee shop to your friends. I am a fan of Geotag when it comes to travel photography, actually, this might be a job conditioning.…

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Fujifilm X100F Review

I recently switched from DSLR to compact camera. I have now been using the Fujifilm X100F for a month including the latest road trip in Iceland. There is my honest review on that camera. I am going to highlight the main difference in terms of experience between a compact mirrorless fixed lens rangefinder camera and…

Switching to Compact Camera

I have done it, I switched from DSLR to a compact camera. There is my story: I have always been a DSLR shooter, from film to digital. I started with a Canon EOS 650 film camera, I dived into digital photography with an affordable Canon EOS 550D which I upgraded to a Canon EOS 6D…

Road Trip The Icelandic West

In April 2017 I decided to take a week off to Iceland and make it an epic road trip with my bro Felix. We landed in Keflavik, rented a car and got around in Iceland reviewing our itinerary watching out for road conditions and weather forecasts! We visited Reykjavik city center and surroundings, hit the…

Backpacking Costa Rica & Panama

In December 2016 we flew to Costa Rica and Panama with the idea of celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve in an unusual place. We landed in San José, the capital of Costa Rica, and quickly escaped to the cloud forest of Monteverde where we got stunned by the vegetation and enjoyed the art of…

Los Diablos Rojos de Panama

Colourful buses Panama city can be quite a choked-up city when it comes to transportation. You will find a lot of personal vehicles getting through the heavy traffic, taxis, local buses… and los Diablos Rojos ! literally the Red Devils. They are a private competition to the local buses. Cheap and fast They are usually…

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Road Trip in Taiwan

In October 2016 we landed in Taïwan for a week of road trip and a week in Penghu archipelago. We first crashed at John & Wi‘s in Taichung for the Jazz festival and a bit of sleep after the 20 hours flight journey. First week we hit the road all together for an epic road…

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The Vintage Kid Contact Sheet

I have been inspired by Josh White to create this article format. I want to share with you a contact sheet, analyse it, tell you the story behind the shot. The purpose is to share with you the way I make photographs. I have been to the exhibition of Marie Jacotey at the Hannah Barry Gallery. The…

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Trans-Siberian & Trans-Mongolian Railway Trip

During Summer 2015 I did traveled the Trans-Siberian Route from St-Petersburg (Russia) to Beijing (China) via Mongolia with Catherine Stolarski. We landed in St-Petersurg from London, then we jumped in the Trans-Siberian Train and stopped in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Olkhon Island and Ulan-Ude before crossing the mongolian border. We jumped off in Ulaanbaatar, took…

The Californian Road Trip

In October 2014 I decided to make the most of that wonderful Californian summer and made a 4500+ km road trip all across California. We rented a car with my bro David and my partner Catherine. The plan was to drive that amazing state all over the place, sleeping in the tent for most nights…

Hitchhiking South America

In 2013 I hitchhiked the Andes with my backpack. I have landed in Ushuaïa (Argentina) and I hitchhiked around 9000+ km to Lima (Peru). I have been to both Argentinian and Chilean Patagonia. Speechless. I met beautiful people, openhearted and peaceful. Everything went smoothly, I felt in love with Argentina. Entirely. They say : “Argentina…