New York City: everything I've learnt from three street photography trips
The Street Photography Capital?
If street photography has a capital city, it's New York. I've now been three times, and every trip has taught me something different.
The first was July 2024: eight days, six of us from London, an Airbnb fridge full of film, a pride event and the 4th of July at Coney Island. That trip became my first ever zine, Across The Pond. The second was 2025 with Hannah for her birthday: five days, five rolls and 136k steps, mostly being a tourist. The third was this year: seven days dedicated purely to photography with JP, 15 rolls of film and over 200,000 steps.
What surprised me most the first time was how familiar it felt. You recognise the streets from films, YouTube and photo books. But none of that tells you how the place actually feels. So this is everything I'd tell a mate before their first trip: where to go, when to go, what to bring, the mistakes I made, and where to get a good flat white.
What makes a good photography trip?
For me, it comes down to three things, in this order:
The people. You can be in the worst place with the best people and be happy. Now imagine great people in a great location.
The location. NYC delivers on this every time. The characters, the food, the lights, the sounds.
The photography. This is down to your taste and ability on the day. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Don't put too much pressure on it.
If you get the first two right, the third tends to look after itself. And if it doesn't, you've still had a brilliant week.
How New York differs from London
We got talking about this towards the end of this year's trip.
New York City seems to have way more characters. People who are so into one thing it's their whole personality, and you can see it in what they're wearing. There's more chance of something mad happening right in front of you at any moment. Shooting here is reactionary.
London street photography feels more structured. It's compact, so you build up a mental library: that sign is there, so I can use that composition. It's more about piecing clever things together. In London I feel like I'm looking for it more.
Be honest with yourself about one thing though: being a visitor changes how you see. Even if you think your eyes are behaving the same, you're somewhere new and exciting, so you notice more. Neither city is better. They're both incredible, I think they just ask for a different skill set.
Where to shoot?
Manhattan is an island, so you always think you can walk it. You can, but it's much bigger than it looks. One evening JP and I walked from the bottom of Manhattan back to Midtown "because it's only an hour and a half". Worth it for the serendipity.
Midtown (5th and 6th Ave, Times Square, Grand Central). The obvious place to start, and for good reason. Rush hour is chaos in the best way. Some of my favourite frames this year came in a half hour of wandering Midtown after dark, when I'd assumed the day was over.
Financial District and Wall Street. It looks incredible, but it can be completely flat. We spent a whole morning there and got nothing. On a random Thursday, it didn’t feel busy. Go, but don't expect it to deliver on demand.
Washington Square Park. Like scrolling TikTok in real life. On Pride weekend in 2024 it was basically one big festival, and I got one of my favourite photos of the trip at sunset.
SoHo and the West Village. Great for slower, layered compositions, signs, posters and shop windows. Easy to combine with the coffee list below.
Chinatown. Busy, dense and full of detail. Good for a walk at anytime of the day.
Brooklyn (Williamsburg). We went for a coffee shop and stayed for the walk back over the bridge into Manhattan. Not loads of extraordinary pictures, but lovely, casual documentary stuff.
The Staten Island Ferry. This is the one. It's free, it's 25 minutes each way, and at golden hour the light really plays ball. On one Saturday evening we did several trips back and forth and it was easily one of the best days of street photography I've had anywhere.
Coney Island. The street photographer's pilgrimage. Harold Feinstein, Bruce Gilden and Alex Webb all shot there long before us. It's roughly an hour on the train from Manhattan. Two ways to do it:
The 4th of July. Absolute chaos. The hot dog eating contest, costumes, crowds from 10am. One of the craziest days of photography I can remember. Expect every other street photographer in New York to have the same idea.
A summer evening. This year we went on a Friday as the sun went down and the carnival lights came on. Much calmer, but the atmosphere was exactly what I was hoping for. Single-handedly the best decision of the trip.
Light, weather and timing
The light in New York deserves its own section. During the day it bounces off buildings and windows like a pinball machine. In the evening the sun drops between the blocks and changes from hour to hour. When it hits, it really hits.
Don't expect it every day though. In 2024, four of our seven days were cloudy and overcast. This year we had the heaviest rain I've seen in ages one day and the most beautiful light I've seen in ages the next.
A few things I'd plan around:
Summer is hot and humid. In 2024 we took a couple of hours out in the middle of the day, played Uno in Central Park (I lost almost every game) and headed back out for rush hour and the evening. Don't feel guilty about a midday reset at the hotel either.
Go out in the rain. It's grim, but some of my favourite shots this year came from two hours of getting absolutely drenched in Midtown: umbrellas, reflections of the Grand Central lights in the water, people huddled together. Just take an umbrella, which I didn't.
Golden hour on the ferry, blue hour on the waterfront. One of my favourite frames from this year was taken from a bench by the river at blue hour.
Don't write off the end of the day. Dark, cloudy, light disappearing, and still I came away with a handful of keepers in half an hour.
Weekends feel different. A Saturday in the city has a completely different energy to a Tuesday. Try to catch both.
How many steps?
This year we averaged around 30,000 steps a day, with a peak of 46,000. In 2024 we hit 43,000 on our busiest day. My feet were begging for recovery afterwards. Pace yourself, and see the shoes section below.
Gear and film.
This year I took two cameras: the Leica MP with the 28mm Elmarit for film, and the Leica M11-P with the 35mm for digital. I ended up with a similar number of film and digital keepers, from roughly 15 rolls and around 3,000 digital frames.
Film or digital? Honestly, I didn't have a system. I swapped every hour or so depending on mood. If I was in good light I'd tend to shoot Portra; in shade I'd lean digital. But I did notice that 28mm on film suits me better. There's more margin for error, and I feel like I get away with more.
Film I used:
Kodak Portra 400 for daytime. 12 rolls this year.
CineStill 800T for evenings and neon. 3 rolls, all at Coney Island. I swapped to my 35mm Summilux for this because I needed f/1.4; the 28 only goes to f/2.8. No amount of editing on a digital file gets you that halation and glow. Some of my favourite pictures from this trip only exist because of that film.
Buy film at B&H Photo. I went there on day one and picked up 10 rolls of Portra 400 and 3 rolls of CineStill 800T. It's one of those places that's worth a visit anyway.
Try one camera, one lens for a day. Halfway through, I left the MP at the hotel and shot a whole day on the M11-P and 35mm. It's freeing, and it means one less decision every five minutes.
Travelling with a partner? Give them a camera. In 2025 Hannah had my X100V so she wasn't just waiting around for me. She pretended she had no idea what she was doing, then took some cool pictures anyway.
Mistakes I made, so you don't have to.
I shot four rolls of Portra 400 at ISO 800. After a night on CineStill I reloaded with Portra and forgot to change the setting. I labelled the rolls, sent a voice note to the lab, and they pushed them a stop. They came back perfectly fine, and arguably the push helped some of them.
My M11-P got soaked. It's not weather sealed, and after two hours in a downpour it seemed fine. Later that evening the viewfinder had fogged up and was almost unusable. I took off the lens, removed the battery and SD card, and left the body next to the air conditioning overnight. By morning it was as good as new and I used it heavily the next day. Use common sense, keep it under cover where you can, and pack an umbrella.
I tried flash with zero practice. A friend kindly lent me his flash for an afternoon. Shooting at around 1/50th on the MP, almost every frame was blurry. If you want to shoot flash in New York, practise at home first.
A half-finished roll through airport scanners. I landed with half a roll of Portra 400 in the MP that had been through the Heathrow scanners. It was fine, and nothing on it was important anyway, which is why I risked it.
I lost a morning to the Apple Store. In 2024, JP and I went to Grand Central to shoot all morning and got distracted by the Vision Pro demo. An hour and a half later we hadn't taken a photo. Worth it? Maybe. Just know New York is full of distractions.
Katz's Deli. Everyone told me to go. It was fine. Busy, overhyped, a bit of a tourist trap. If you love pastrami, go. Otherwise I wouldn't put it on the list.
The mindset that helps.
You never know what's around the corner. This is the biggest reason I keep shooting street. The only other thing with that kind of unpredictability is live sport. When I look at my favourite photographs, they're all moments I could never have predicted. So a dead morning on Wall Street isn't a sign the day is over. It might be five minutes before you take fifty frames.
Slow spells are normal. As my friend JP put it, you're "accumulating goodwill". You see nothing, nothing, nothing, and then it all happens at once. Most of street photography is failure; one good photograph is something to be proud of.
Think in puzzle pieces. I treat a lot of street photography as a puzzle: elements that connect or relate in some way. A woman with a bold pattern. Three people with walking sticks. A shopping bag next to a retail sign. At a flower market, I looked for people wearing flowery clothes or carrying flowers. An umbrella silhouette, a woman looking right and an arrow pointing right. They won't all win awards, but it's a fun game and it keeps your eyes switched on.
Fun counts. One day in 2024 we walked 38,000 steps and I didn't take a single picture I'd call interesting. I didn't care, because I was having a great time. Not every day has to produce keepers.
Talk to people. One of my favourite pictures from this year started with me photographing a security guard's rings. He lifted his hand, we got chatting, and I asked for a picture. In 2024 a guy asked if he was in my shot; we ended up chatting and he sat for a portrait surrounded by bubbles.
If you're on holiday with someone else, set expectations. With Hannah I went for roughly 30% looking for pictures and 70% enjoying the trip. If the camera's round my neck, I can't switch off, so be honest with yourself and with them.
Meet people. Through photography I've got friends in cities all over the world. This year we met up with so many other photographers and it was the best part of the week. Reach out to photographers you might know before you go.
Coffee, food, books and shoes.
I'm not joking when I say we plan our walking routes around coffee shops. At 30k steps a day, a fourth coffee won't hurt.
Coffee
Culture Espresso (Midtown). My favourite. Always quick, always exceptional, and the cookies are even better than the coffee. The perfect break from a 5th or 6th Ave mission.
Arcane Estate (West Village). Panamanian coffee from people who really care. Talk to the barista and ask what they recommend.
SEY Coffee (Brooklyn). Equally special. When I asked what was best, the barista said whatever I picked would be their best. A stranger gave it 10/10 and he was right.
La Cabra (Lafayette St). Never not busy, for good reason. Solid bakery too.
La Colombe (all over). Not the most specialty of the list, think WatchHouse for Londoners, but the draft latte is unreal on a humid day. Milkshake texture, coffee taste. I wish we had it in London.
Food
John's of Bleecker Street (pizza)
Tompkins Square Bagels
Apollo Bagels
Funny Face Bakery
Photo books
Dashwood Books. A brilliant photobook shop.
Pitcherhouse and Small Dark Room. If I'd had a spare suitcase and unlimited money I'd have filled it.
If you're also being a tourist
Top of the Rock, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, SoHo and 5th Ave.
Shoes
We all know shoes matter for street photography. In 2024 my skate shoes (Nike SB Nyjah Huston signatures) were fine until day three, then started hurting. I bought a pair of On running shoes and wore them for the rest of the trip and for over a year after. I bought anther pair a few months back and used them this year; the inside soles are finally coming apart, and I'll probably buy the same pair again.
Before you go
If I had to boil it down:
Plan your days around neighbourhoods and coffee, not a shot list
Buy film at B&H, Portra 400 for day, CineStill 800T for night
Do the Staten Island Ferry at golden hour, more than once
Get to Coney Island. It’s a must for any street photographer
Pack an umbrella and comfortable running/walking shoes
Check your ISO every time you reload…
Message a few local photographers before you land
New York has become an annual pilgrimage for me now, so I'm already thinking about trip number four. If you're going, I hope this helps. And if you're a local with a coffee shop I've missed, let me know.
See you on the street, Mike
Across The Pond Vol.2 a New York City Photography Zine by Mike Chudley.
Following on from my first zine Across The Pond, this 2nd volume featuring my favourite photographs my a 6 day trip in April 2025.
Only 150 available.
Specifications:
Size: A5 Zine
Cover: 250gsm Silk with Matt Lamination
Pages: 44 inside pages onto 130gsm Silk
Images: 33 full-colour images
Please Note: Some the images shown on this page are Mockups of the final product.