Santa Barbara, CA Street Photography

I spent a few days in Santa Barbara, CA taking deep breaths of sea air and eating tacos. One morning, I walked up State Street with the coffee I made in my Aeropress and new travel hot water pot. I searched for breakfast food, many restaurants with signs saying they were temporarily closed. By 9 am I was reading a book on the beach and eating my breakfast sandwich without another person in sight.

Later that day, I walked around with my camera. When recently combing through my photography archives, I realized some of my favorite photos from the last few years are street photography. People waiting for public transportation in Thailand, contemplative artists in Italy, and people laughing together in Uganda. Images captured while I was walking or driving places, the everyday essence of places too often reduced to identical images of tourist spots.

So, I've been spending time learning this art of capturing a place by capturing its people and its streets. In Santa Barbara, I took a purposeful walk looking for subjects. It was so quiet with the subject I’m most used to, droves of people, gone. Instead, a new challenge presented itself: finding interesting subjects that were not people-centric.

I think that’s why street photography is my favorite, there is always an element of surprise with what you will find to capture.

Prints of some of the photos seen on this blog are available HERE.