Captured #19: December 2025

Hi ☃️

Welcome to my final newsletter of the year. Turns out the monthly cadence I started out with is pretty hard to maintain, so I’ll be sending these out more sporadically in 2026 as the mood takes me. Feedback on the emails is rare, but people don’t often unsubscribe so I think I’m doing something right. Do let me know what you think though, good or bad!

In this issue I’ve got a bunch of photos from a recent trip to New York City, some info about an upcoming street photography exhibition in Edinburgh, blog posts, YouTubes and a few links that I found interesting.

Whatever you’re doing this festive period, I hope you have a good one! Keep snapping 🎄📷 😊

🇺🇸 New York City, baby!

Some people spend their hard-earned money on wildly expensive cameras, but I prefer to buy mildly expensive cameras and use the rest of my spare dosh for travelling. Much better, imo. That’s how I justify it to myself anyway.

I splurged on a trip to NYC in late October for a 4-day intensive street photography workshop. NYC is heralded as the street photography mecca, and this is entirely justified. It’s incredible. People and characters are everywhere, and there are countless interesting locations to shoot. I was only there 6 days but I could spend 6 months and never get bored. I want to go back for longer next year, if I can swing it. Do I have any readers from New York?

The weather in late Oct/early Nov can be patchy, but aside from biblical rain on the first day (the tail end of a Caribbean hurricane), we lucked out with no rain and a lot of clear skies.

Much of the workshop was focused on night photography, which I love. We spent time in Greenwich Village, the West Village, Chinatown, Financial District and on Manhattan Bridge – brilliant locations really. I was there for Halloween, and I hadn’t realised quite how insane that night is in New York. As a Brit, it’s unfathomable. As a photographer, incredible.

I bought a new (second hand) lens for the trip (review on the blog) which was an f1.4 24mm full-frame equivalent. Pretty wide for street and waaay out of my comfort zone (you need to get very close), but I persisted with it and I’m really pleased with the results I got. I think it’s changed my style a little, for the better, and it’s quickly become my favourite lens.

Here are a selection of photos, a lot of which I’ve yet to share on the socials. An exclusive set! Let me know what your favourite is.

🔗 Links ahoy!

Stuff of interest, perhaps.

• Fujifilm XF 16mm f1.4 WR review. A street photography classic. I wrote a review of my new lens. It’s a banger (the lens, not the review).
• 🎺 I got runner-up in the World Street Photo Awards 2025, Transport category. It probably sounds more impressive than it is (it’s just a comp with a fancy name) although the incredible Mark Fearnley was a judge so I’m calling it a big win. I wrote a wee blog about it.
• Take some inspiration from across the decades in Mark Cohen’s portfolio.
• 🇯🇵 I’m rather obsessed with Japan, not gonna lie. These incredible images in Roadside Lights ⅵ from Eiji Ohashi only make matters worse. I need to go there! Japan and NYC 2026? 💸

🖼️ An Edinburgh Street Photography exhibition – open call closes this week!

A few of us Edinburgh-based snappers are putting on an exhibition. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s not too late to enter, check out the open call. We could do with more entries so get submitting! And tell your Edinburgh friends!

🏆 Competition corner

Some other street photo competitions you might be interested in.

• The RAW Society are holding a big photo fest in Menorca next May. Still time to submit!
• London Camera Exchange Photographer of the Year 2025. This is free to enter unlike most comps. Really good of LCE to run this.

📺 YouTubes

A few I liked last month, many with an NYC theme 🇺🇸

Listening Party 🔈

Earworm of the month.

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Happy holidays everyone! See you in 2026 😊