Year End Gallery 2022
Annual street photography gallery from @womeninstreet, 2022 edition, curated by Julia Coddington
The incense, the light and the lovely women in lace took on an ethereal feel during the Señor de los Milagros procession at St Patrick’s Cathedral in October. I am not a religious person but their energy and spirit was palpable.
This is another photo that I captured when I was least expecting it under suboptimal conditions. I often lament the fact that my two young children are with me for much of the time that I’m out shooting. I wish I could be alone and get in the zone, but I’d rather photograph with my kids than not get to photograph at all, so I take my little camera with me everywhere. For this photo, I had just bought smoothies for my kids, and we were waiting for them to be made. I was bored while waiting, so I just started playing with the reflection off of the menu in the smoothie shop, using a slow shutter speed and ICM. The scene reflected off the glass-covered menu is the weekend crowd, on the riverside behind me.
This was taken on the J-line streetcar in San Francisco, California, which happens to run on Church Street. Before I’d gotten on this train, another one had passed me by, even though I was waiting at the stop, and I had been annoyed. I boarded this one and found myself across from these sisters, likely members of the Missionaries of Charity, which has an order nearby. I was taken with their beautific expressions, the objects they held, and of course, the midday light shining on them. I have a fairly large camera and took a few photos of them, but they never really looked over. I was delighted that we were on Church Street, and did my best to get the street sign in the background, but I wasn’t quite sure it came together until I returned home.
For many, 2022 was the year of protest. I took this shot at the “Freedom for Iran” protest in London, in October.
Women. Life. Freedom.
To me, 2022 was the return to travel. I only took up photography in a more serious manner towards the end of 2020 so I was confined to shooting in my current home country Singapore. A small Red Dot that I was happy to explore further with my camera during these years of lockdown. However returning to the Netherlands, Thailand, and Vietnam this year was an absolute pleasure.
This photo was taken just last month in Saigon. As the morning sun was rising rapidly, shopkeepers put up their sun covers to protect their wares from the heat. A last ray of sun before it would rise higher, and the strong colours and contrasts would disappear.
I went to London this last summer, and this photo was taken during an amazing street photography workshop I attended.
I was in London for many beautiful Royal events, like the Queen’s 90th birthday, the Platinum Jubilee, etc. But the days surrounding the Majesty’s death have been the most moving ones I have experienced. The atmosphere was sad, but at the same time very quiet and people genuinely paid their respects with dignity. The city was silent and beautiful. I have never seen so many flowers in so few days. It was very moving.
All the shops had their windows with the Queen’s photo. This very classic men’s shop in Mayfair was one of them. I stayed a few minutes waiting for a nice reflection as the light was falling perfectly. These two very British gentlemen were just perfect to surround the Queen’s portrait!
The armor exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City: I’ve never seen the knights look so interested!
My most important picture I took in January 2022. It was part of the Women Street Photographers exhibition during the Indian Photo Festival — Hyderabad. I was very lucky and proud to be able to see this exhibition, I went to India with a good friend and it was a very special trip.
One of my favorite playgrounds is Tel Aviv — Seaside. It is always full of surprises and absolutely colorful characters. Here’s one of stories that has to be told.
My favourite photo of 2022 was taken at the historic Silk Exchange of Valencia (LONJA DE LA SEDA). There are many areas in this building with beautiful ambient light and although I was expecting to get some good shots, I never imagined capturing this perfect intimate moment between these two young women, probably sisters and tourists like myself.
This photo was taken on our first holiday in Austria. My older daughter was brave enough to go in this ice cold river. Courageous young women this world definitely needs.
My friends and I were on our way to Staten Island for a day of exploring and taking photos. I was curious and excited about what kind of photos I might get once I arrived, but my favorite photo of the day actually happened on the journey there, on the Staten Island Ferry. The girl stood peacefully in the fierce wind, sipping her coffee while her hair whipped around her. I couldn’t help but think of Bob Dylan’s lyrics: “The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind”.
I often follow the light as I walk the streets looking for a colorful scene or person that attracts my eye. The window of light during the winter months is short, and familiarity with how the sun is moving and visible between the tall buildings is something that has captured my attention. One afternoon as I was exploring, I discovered a place where the light was shining in from the sun in the expected direction, as well as from 180 degrees behind, as the sunlight was reflecting off a huge glass tower creating a soft lightbox effect. The location was a busy lunch spot, where many food trucks were parked waiting for the local office workers. In the winter the light peaked here during the lunch hour. This candid image was made of this young woman dressed in her shirt decorated with the waitress from the bar from Edouard Manet’s painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. She was bathed in the reflected light coming from the glass building behind me and her hair caught the backlight of the actual sun. To my surprise upon viewing the image later on my computer, I noticed her matching eye makeup which I had not seen, as I had been a bit blinded by the light when she was in front of my lens.
I very often turn to windows in search of a good shot. Maybe because plain air provides too much information — showing scenes and faces too clear for my fantasy to open her eyes. A window offers so much more space for less; generous to the photographer’s and viewer’s imagination; and even as generous as to reflect what is happening on the other side, bringing different stories together, in one frame. And yet… that same window leads me straight to genuine intimate moments, close and without deviation whatsoever, sometimes almost touchable.
I took this photo at the end of last year. A lady waiting amidst the hustle and bustle of people buying Christmas presents in the main shopping street of Ghent (Belgium).
Sometimes moments surprise us when we least expect them. I was getting ready to call it a night, discouraged for not having captured anything that excited me on an evening photo walk through Philadelphia. When this bus came to a stop near me, I was drawn to the large face of the man on its side. I raised my camera, half-considering whether to shoot, when I noticed the couple inside resting on one another. I took the shot. I didn’t notice until later, how the triangle of their heads leaning together “completed” the missing half of the man’s nose.
This image was taken in Belle Glade, Florida — the poorest city in the state. I met Lisa, a woman addicted to alcholol and crack cocaine, on the street while photographing. She is well-read and funny, with a heart of gold, but the streets have not been kind to her, and her brain doesn’t work well anymore. In this photograph, Lisa is at a wake for a man I came to know who died at the hospital, alone and without friends. The tree in the background fell onto his apartment the night he died.
“Kids at the County Fair” is a photograph taken at summer’s end in my hometown in Croatia. I liked this scene with the kids enjoying a day in nature, and the horse added a dreamy feel to the entire frame. This photo is also a part of my long-term project “Unknown hometown,” exploring different perspectives on well known places and community.
This photo was taken during Athens “Pride Festival,” in front of the Greek Parliament building. I like the juxtaposition between the girls having fun and the soldier guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier.
I was in Maui right before Christmas. The weather was absolutely whacky…65 mph winds, pouring rain, turbulent seas. The sun peeked out one afternoon, so I grabbed my camera and ran down to the ocean expecting that it would be empty since it was still pretty cold. A few people were out and about and playing in the massive waves. After I was done shooting, I found out these folks were from Canada, and to them it was quite balmy.
I can’t complain; we started the year going to Cancún in January. We took our daughter who gets very little time off and we spent “points” to stay at an all-inclusive resort — not our style at all — where we didn’t leave the grounds for 4 days. I had no hopes of making any street photographs, yet here is one of my favorites of the year. The woman of a certain age in a glittery bikini, her partner holding a coconut and looking kind of lost, and the wind picking up the fabric of the little cabana — to me it has the sort of stylized look of a Wes Anderson movie or something.
My husband loves heights and couldn’t resist going to NYC’s Edge, the highest outdoor skydeck in the Western hemisphere, when we visited NYC in August. I saw this scene forming and quickly moved him aside to take a few photos with my phone. I’m always looking for layered subjects, especially at recognizable tourist locations. We were here for quite awhile but these people quickly dispersed and nobody else sat down like this for the rest of our visit.
I took this photo last summer in Morocco. I had taken a tour of the country with my family. Since we went in the middle of summer, it was very hot.
On this day we strolled through the old town of Rabat and suddenly had a wonderful view of this very crowded beach. We would have loved to walk there to cool down, but unfortunately, we had to continue to our next stop. We would have had a hard time finding a place anyway.
Montreal, February, 2022. There is a festival every winter called Luminotherapie to bring some light into the darker days of winter here. It was bright blue skies when I decided to get on the ferris wheel, to get an aerial shot — the snow squall started just as I reached the top. I love this shot, but was real glad to get off that ferris wheel.
I really love photographing snowstorms in NYC. When the snow blankets the city, it covers it with a layer of beauty, peace and calm that is often hidden in the freneticism that is life in the city. January, 2022.
Curated by Julia Coddington
Women in Street
social media collaborative for female street photographers
