Street Photography After Darke: An interview with the editor of Klick magazine

Leica and “street photography” are so intertwined in photography folklore that becoming the owner of a Leica camera imposes a cultural obligation to do “street”. Armed with my Q3, I set out upon that path, but soon discovered that I was lost. What exactly is street photography, and how should I judge an image in that genre to be good, bad, or indifferent? I turned to Klick magazine for some help.

Introducing Klick

Derek Darke is founder and editor of Klick magazine, a quarterly publication dedicated to putting the best of street photography into print and allowing the photographers to tell the backstory of their images. I recently sat down with Derek to try to understand what exactly is “street photography” and what makes an image worthy of publication in Klick. Examples of images previously published in Klick are displayed throughout the article.

But first – a request

I’d like to involve you in an exercise about street photography. For now, just look at the picture below. At the end of the article, I’ll pose a question for you to consider.

The origins of street photography

The practice of taking candid pictures of public places dates back as far as the 1870s. It became increasingly popular during the 1930s and 1940s, coincidentally, around the time that Leica introduced its first cameras with a coupled rangefinder. It was also a time when the great “picture magazines” of Vu (France, 1928), Life (USA, 1936), and Picture Post (UK, 1938) surged in popularity. However, the term “street photography” did not become widely used until the 1960s and 1970s.

Those magazines shaped our collective view as to what is a “street photograph”. The editors carefully curated the images, deciding what the public saw in the next issue. Thus, the editors became the gatekeepers of the photographers’ output. It was they who built the reputation of the photographers and shaped our collective opinion of what was a good photograph.

Today, social media is the primary channel through which billions of images are published. They are “liked” or, more often, ignored, as the doom-scrolling populace speeds by with barely a glance at even the most carefully crafted photograph. The democratic right bestowed upon us by the internet has endowed us with the capability to publish a fire hose of mediocrity, tagged #streetphotography.

Klick magazine was started as an antidote to that torrent of the forgettable. It is intended to be a space where the reader can take a proper look at each picture. They can also read the photographer’s words, learning the intention and history behind the image.

Street photography today

My conversation with Derek began with an attempt to define what is meant by “street photography”. Derek’s first criterion is that the picture must “capture the moment”, but not just “any moment”. For example, a snapshot of a woman carrying a red umbrella walking down a street is not a “moment”. There is nothing visually special in the frame.

By contrast, an image which captured three women, all wearing the same dress but socially unconnected one to another, would be a good street photograph. So, by implication, the ‘moment’ must encapsulate something visually distinctive.

For Derek, pictures of buildings are not street photography pictures; that is architectural photography. He therefore wants the ‘mark of humanity’ to be present in a photo for it to be potentially classified as a street photograph.

While I tend to agree with Derek, and Henri Cartier-Bresson for that matter, regarding the importance of the “decisive moment”, I think the issue of categorising what is and what is not, a street photograph is quite difficult. Most of us would instinctively agree that street photography is different from sports photography or wildlife photography. However, consider the following two pictures.

Is the one on the left a “sports” or “street” photograph? Is the one on the right “wildlife” or “street”. Ignoring the fact that these are both AI generated (for the purpose of editorial expediency), this type of classification ‘edge case’ suggests that drawing a reliable boundary to strictly delineate an image as street photography or not, is very tricky.

I suspect the answer can only be determined by two factors: the intent of the photographer, and the classification boundaries within the viewer’s own mind. What is street for you is sports or wildlife for me.

A million opinions

Researching the topic of street photography reveals an endless list of sub-categories, that at least some people feel rightly belong in the street photography camp. These range from architecture, through abstract, candid portraits, juxtaposition, humorous, and on to still life, drifting into social documentary.

Derek feels that there is a likeness between street photography and blues music. For him, street photography is inherently unruly. It can be messy, out of focus even, but it must have soul. For him, that feels like blues music.

He feels that many photographers explore other types of photography, but eventually gravitate towards street photography because it is “real” and unpredictable. It’s the “real photographer’s photography”. I can understand that view. But, I would liken it more to jazz.

A harmonious whole

Pop music is easy to listen to because it has a single central melodic theme — in the same way that a posed portrait is easy to look at because there is no visual complexity. In jazz, the various instruments intertwine in often unpredictable ways, and only when their various musical routes converge into a harmonious whole does the music really come together. Similarly, a street scene frequently contains disparate elements which must coalesce in the frame to form that “special moment”.

So far, we have established that street photography can be messy, diverse in nature, unruly … and, importantly, raw (not subjected to unnecessary post-processing). But, in practice, I have discovered, it is also governed and judged by arcane rules. A topic that we will return to when we revisit the “boy who almost flew away” photo later.

What Really Matters

We can approach the idea of the boundaries of street photography by using tests that allow for shades of grey rather than strict black-and-white, in-or-out, results. For example, pictures that are spontaneous rather than posed, in public rather than private spaces, will tend to be easier to classify as street photographs.

But what of “street portraits”, where the subject is invited by the photographer to have their picture taken in a street environment? Such pictures are undoubtedly posed but not previously planned, and are in an urban environment, open to the public. Does this genre therefore sit within or outside the street photography category? Such decisions amplify the idea that street photography is a slippery concept to pin down.

One of the defining ambitions that drove the founding of Klick was to foster a community that provides a place where people who love whatever this thing called street photography is, can share their images and tell their stories. Maybe we don’t need to be too certain of the boundaries of street photography definitions. We should, instead, focus on building that community and, most importantly, enjoy the time we spend out on the street.

The boy who almost flew away

To close our conversation, I asked Derek for his opinion on this photograph. In his judgement, the image is spoiled by the boy’s foot not being entirely separated from his sister’s face; thereby revealing another “unspoken” rule of street photography. This potentially “good” image has indeed “captured a moment”, is visually distinctive and has not been enhanced by elaborate post-processing, but has broken a hidden rule that visual elements must not overlap.

He pointed out that if it had been taken by someone experienced in street photography, they would not have been happy that the flying boy’s foot was not visually separated from his younger sister’s face. It was therefore not good enough to merit inclusion in Klick magazine.

Derek holds to the mantra that “in street photography, there are no rules”. However, “not overlapping”, whilst not being a “rule”, is something to be avoided, and, in the specific case of this picture, prevents it from being a “good” street photograph.

Who took the photo?

The image was taken by the author, a photographer with zero “brand value” in the street photography world, and so I discussed with Derek whether the assessment of this picture, and that of other street photographs, could be biased depending upon the identity of the photographer. Had this picture been taken by a photographer who had built a large social media following, would this minor distraction be more readily overlooked?

We concluded that it would then be difficult to separate the picture from the photographer’s reputation. Therefore, we have revealed another “rule”; that it is not just the image by which we judge its pictorial merit. Occasionally, the “brand value” of the photographer provides a ‘halo effect’ that enhances the visual “value” of the image. By logical deduction, may it therefore also be true that some images by renowned photographers are not actually as “good” as they have been rated?

Seaside Woman

In 1977, Sir Paul McCartney (of The Beatles), released a song called “Seaside Woman” under the band name Suzy and the Red Stripes specifically to test whether he could create as big a hit song without it being directly associated with either his name or that of The Beatles. The result was a song which rose to become #59 on the US Billboard Hot 100; not an entire flop, but nowhere near the success that would have been achieved had it been released under his own name.

My question to you, Dear Reader, is therefore:  In your opinion, is the “boy who almost flew away” image a good street photograph, or is it visually impaired by the location of the boy’s foot, consigning it to the darkroom floor? If it had been taken by a famous street photographer or perhaps by Martin Parr CBE, as an example of his seaside imagery, could it then be viewed as a “great” photo? I would welcome your comments.

In conclusion

I remain of the opinion that I still don’t understand how to assess a street photograph. As a result, I often fail to understand the alleged artistic merit of some pictures which have been elevated to a higher plane of public applause.

For example, a picture of people sitting behind a café window with reflections of the street, is a trope that appears to be popular and much ‘liked’. But, all too frequently in my eyes, it is just an image of the commonplace that has had “importance thrust upon it”.

In this age of social media with its fire hose of visual mediocrity, the real gems — those special moments — are just as rare as they ever were. We know that a day on the street may generate hundreds of images, but precious few of any lasting value, just as the panhandlers who sifted for gold came to realise.

I’m left with the feeling that street photography is one of the most challenging ways to wield a camera in the world. When one of those special moments arises to be sucked behind the shutter curtain, there are few better feelings.

But not all that glitters is gold. We should not fool ourselves into believing that a pale pastiche of a much-copied image is anything more than practising the style of someone much more accomplished than ourselves. Occasionally, the emperor really does have no clothes.

Klicking into place

Derek’s motivation in starting the Klick magazine was to provide a place where the best street photography today was given a printed place to be properly appreciated — a space entirely separate from the endless scrolling of social media sites.

He is clearly both passionate and knowledgeable about street photography, and the magazine is of high quality, both in its content and physical form. Picking up a copy of Klick, it is immediately apparent that the design has been carefully considered, and the content properly curated through the editorial process.

For me, it has echoes of the original picture magazines that made street photography popular. It has an editorial hand firmly on the tiller to guide the finished body of work to become a coherent and interesting collection. As Derek summarised his initiative, Klick magazine is “for street photographers by street photographers”, whoever they are and wherever they may be. I wish him every success.

It would therefore be fitting for us to close with a final few images from the pages of past editions of the Klick magazine (link to purchase a copy can be found at the end of this article).

Where to buy Klick

Klick magazine Issue 6 is published on 1 October 2025 and, together with back-issues, can be ordered here.

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Read more from Andrew Owen-Price

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