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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a stubborn landscape photographer tries to survive a day of street photography in Edinburgh… you’re in the right place.

This video follows my (mis)adventures swapping out castles, tripods, and sideways Scottish rain for cobbled alleys, bagpipes, and a suspicious amount of Guinness. And to make sure I didn’t completely humiliate myself, I had the dubious honor of being mentored by none other than Sean Tucker, a man who actually knows what he’s doing with street photography.

Spoiler: I did not.

The trip started innocently enough: moody skies, Eilean Donan Castle, sideways rain, and me waiting for “dynamic light” that never showed up. In landscape photography, that’s perfectly normal — stand around for hours in wellies, stare at clouds, mutter to yourself about appropriate footwear, and eventually get a shot that justifies the wet feet.

But Sean had other plans. Instead of hiding from the weather in a gift shop (where Amanda was enthusiastically spending our life savings on shortbread and tartan tat), I was dragged into the city to “learn the ways of the street.”

Sean's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@seantuck

Now, for those who don’t know, street photography is basically the exact opposite of landscapes. Instead of waiting hours for the sun to break through the clouds, you wait minutes for a stranger in a stylish hat to walk through a beam of light. Instead of composing foreground rocks against distant mountains, you compose scaffolding, neon signs, and tourists eating ice cream. And instead of tripods… well, apparently tripods are considered a crime against humanity in this genre.

If Sean had rolled his eyes any harder when I suggested using a tripod, they’d still be orbiting Arthur’s Seat.

Sean explained there are two kinds of street photographers:
Hunters → chase down subjects like paparazzi in stealth mode.
Fishers → find an interesting scene, frame it up, and then patiently wait for life to wander into their shot.

As a coward who didn’t fancy confrontation with burly Scotsmen, I opted for “fishing.” Which, as Sean pointed out, is basically what landscape photographers do anyway — find a composition, wait, and hope nature delivers. Only this time, instead of waiting for sunlight, I was waiting for a man in a red jacket to wander past a red door.
Sounds easy, right? Wrong.

Here’s the thing: my entire career has been built on wide lenses, big sweeping vistas, and the occasional foreground rock to make me feel clever. Drop me in a city with a 55mm lens and suddenly I’m claustrophobic, panicking, and muttering “it’s too tight” like I’ve just tried on skinny jeans in a changing room.

Sean, being a saint, tried to help: “Stop trying to shoot the entire city, Gavin. Find one story. One subject. One little moment.”

Will I nail a banger and earn that Guinness and will Amanda ever give Sean his camera back? There's really only one way to find out.

Thanks for watching Gavin - Fototripper

#highlands #edinburgh #streetphotography 

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WTF Does Sean Tucker Know About Street Photography? Edinburgh Tour

WTF Does Sean Tucker Know About Street Photography? Edinburgh Tour

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