The philosophy that helped me take pictures
Right, so I've been meaning to write about this for a while.
About 6 years ago I picked up The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
I'd heard people bang on about mindfulness and being present and all that for ages and it always felt a bit... wishy washy?
Like yeah mate, be present… cheers for that.
But this book was different. Eckhart Tolle doesn't dress it up in spiritual nonsense. His whole thing is dead simple: right now is the only real thing.
The past? That's just a memory. The future? A guess.
This moment, literally right now while you're reading this, is the only bit that's actually happening. Nothing else is real.
And I don't know if I just read it at the right time in my life or something but it clicked. Not in a dramatic way.
Like someone finally explained something you couldn't put into words.
and it’s so closely related to street photography, I have to share it with you.
Photography is just paying attention, isn't it?
When you're out with a camera, especially on the street, you can't be doom-scrolling or in your head about some email you forgot to send.
If you're not locked in, you miss stuff.
Street photography is basically a game of noticing. The way light hits a staircase. A stranger's expression changing for half a second. Two bikes on the floor that look like a face.
None of that stuff is obvious… you’re almost training yourself to notice it.
And that's Eckhart Tolle’s entire point.
Most of us spend our lives stuck in our own heads - worrying about the future or replaying the past while actual life is just cracking on without us.
Photography drags me out of that mindset and into the present moment.
The envelope story
There's a Kurt Vonnegut quote I absolutely love that sums all this up way better than I can.
He tells his wife he's popping out to buy an envelope… i’ll let you read the rest.
To summerise… he says we're dancing animals.
That's street photography to me. That's genuinely why I grab the camera and head out the door. Not really for the photos. For the farting around. For the noticing. For being a dancing animal on a Saturday afternoon with nowhere to be.
Wise words from Kurt Vonnegut
Gratitude for the boring bits
One thing that's stuck with me from The Power of Now is this idea of appreciating what's already in front of you. Not the dream trip or perfect golden hour, just... the regular stuff.
I walk a lot of the same streets every week and I never run out of things to shoot. Because it's never actually the same twice, is it?
London helps, arguably the most interesting city going but stick with me here.
The light's different, the people are different, the vibe is always changing.
The present moment is endlessly interesting if you actually bother to show up for it. That's true whether you've got a camera or not.
Chasing flow
The other thing street photography does and I think this connects to The Power of Now - is it forces a state of total focus.
I'm not going to pretend I walk around in some zen state every time I shoot. I'm human, my brain's as busy as yours.
But when you get those five or ten minutes where everything goes quiet and you're just responding to what's happening in front of you? It's unreal. Time disappears. The inner monologue shuts up.
You're not thinking about yourself anymore.
That's flow…. that's presence, whatever you want to call it, it feels brilliant.
A small challenge
Whether you shoot or not, try this: go for a walk today. Leave the headphones at home. Don't stick on another podcast. Just walk and actually look at things.
Notice the light and the people and unremarkable stuff. Noitce how you feel when you practise this.
If you haven't read The Power of Now, honestly give it a go. It's short, it's not complicated, and it puts into words something we all kind of know but keep forgetting.
There's a line from Eckhart Tolle I'll end with:
"Do not be concerned with the fruit of your action - just give attention to the action itself."
That's street photography in a sentence. Don't worry about whether the shot's any good. Don't think about likes or the portfolio.
Just see. Press the shutter. The rest sorts itself out.
Right, I'm off to fart around, see you out there.
Mike
PS. Can you tell I’m thoroughly enjoying B&W? I made a preset for it if you’re interested.
The Perfect High Contrast B&W Preset (in my opinion)
If you shoot Leica, you already know the HC Black & White picture profile. It’s how I always use my M11 - the high contrast black white helps emphasise light, shadow, highlights, shapes, form and ultimately improve my compositions on the move.
Looking at the regular coloured picture profiles doesn’t do much for me whilst shooting. They’re almost boring in a way that makes no difference to how I see.
But there’s something very satisfying and helpful about the crunchy pop of contrast from the b&w profile. But here’s my issue… I am always shooting RAW, probably like you.
That beautiful high contrast preview disappears the moment you open Lightroom and start developing, and you're left staring at a full colour file. Most of the time that's fine I end up with final colour photographs around 70% of the time.
But for the other 30%, when the shoe fits, you know it needs to be black and white and I want that previous Leica b&w look. But it's gone.
So I built this preset.
This preset is my attempt to recreate the Leica HC B&W profile as faithfully as possible inside Lightroom - and then push it just a little further with added texture and a touch more contrast, making it my new favourite B&W look i’ve seen from a preset… obviously i’m biased.
How I Made It:
This wasn't just a case of desaturating a file and tweaking the tone curve. To get this right, I shot against a colour card and painstakingly matched how the Leica HC B&W profile converts each colour into grey. The shade of grey that red becomes. The shade that green becomes. Skin tones. Sky. Foliage. Each one needed to be precise, so that when you drop this preset onto a colour RAW file, the tonal relationships match, as closely as possible what the Leica profile would have produced in-camera.
Combined with the Adobe Monochrome profile in Lightroom, the result is consistent and reliable across a range of camera files - not just Leica. I've tested it across multiple systems and it looks great to me.
This is the B&W preset I've been using personally for months. It's dialled.
What You Get:
XMP file for Lightroom desktop
DNG file for Lightroom mobile