“I am rather discrete, so somehow I manage to capture interesting situations without getting into trouble. I am more an observer, I walk around with my camera on the shoulder, look what is going on and, if something captures my attention, I shoot.

“When people notice me they react in a number of ways: start posing, gather for group pictures, ignore me, ask what I am doing or tell me off. I can usually tell what kind of a reaction I might get and if I do not feel comfortable at taking a picture of someone or I think it will cause trouble I simply do not take the photo.

“You need to look like someone knowing what you are doing and not act in a suspicious way. If you are too sneaky they will approach you asking what you are doing or tell the police that there is a strangely behaving guy with a camera. So it is quite tricky to shoot at night, but I still like it.”

via Maciej Dakowicz on street photography – bbc.co.uk

I find street photography fascinating, but I lack the nerve to document scenes like this myself. In fact, if you look through my Paris set on Flickr, you will mostly see a city devoid of life. This is a choice on my part, but one I think I may reconsider.

While I enjoy landscapes, architecture and objects, I realised whilst looking through the pictures of that recent trip to Paris, that the shots with people in – even the tourists that I was trying to avoid – actually added some interest and warmth that my shots usually lack.