The Existential Guide To Street Photography

“Why are you tak­ing my pic­ture?’’ demands a surly, mid­dle-aged woman after street pho­tog­ra­ph­er Char­lie Kwai puts a cam­era up in her face and hits click. ​“I had to”, he replies, full of mis­chie­vous charm. ​“Your face bright­ened up the morning.”

It’s fair to say that when it comes to tak­ing pho­tos, Charlie’s approach is direct – almost con­fronta­tion­al. With the Londoner’s work, there’s no lurk­ing, no furtive cap­tures: if he sees a pic­ture, he jumps straight in there and shoots it.

While you might think such a method would result in a bunch of dis­grun­tled sub­jects, it doesn’t. Using this hon­est, straight­for­ward modus operan­di, the results are over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive. The pic­tures speak for them­selves, encap­su­lat­ing the dynam­ic rela­tion­ship between the sub­ject, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and the city that sur­rounds them both.

Char­lie – who is East Lon­don born and bred – is self-taught, so has avoid­ed many of the pit­falls that can often come with a for­mal edu­ca­tion. He’s not obsessed with notions of craft and cares lit­tle about equip­ment, nor is he inter­est­ed in devel­op­ments in pho­to­graph­ic tech­nol­o­gy. Like­wise, when he shoots, he’s unbur­dened by the weight of photography’s short, intense history. 

“I explored myself through the way I engage with peo­ple and how I pho­to­graph them, so my approach was just an inevitabil­i­ty,” he explains. ​“And that’s always evolv­ing because what I cre­ate is just a reflec­tion of my personality.”

The way Char­lie works is dri­ven by an instinc­tive curios­i­ty. When he start­ed tak­ing pic­tures, he remem­bers, there was a long peri­od of time in which he made every mis­take in the book. After count­less days spent hit­ting the street, ded­i­cat­ing at least five hours a day to shoot­ing (on occa­sions, cov­er­ing up to 30 km in a sin­gle ses­sion) he dis­cov­ered, a set­up that suited. 

Frame after frame, scene after scene, his process has been stripped back. Now he sim­ply walks, watch­es and shoots. This is pho­tog­ra­phy as a phys­i­cal prac­tice, art as exis­ten­tial dance. And it works.

Look at the Londoner’s images and you’ll be met with the tight, sat­u­rat­ed street por­traits that have become his trade­mark. He’s so close to his sub­jects that you can prac­ti­cal­ly feel their breath. Char­lie is liv­ing proof that good street pho­tog­ra­phy isn’t about a fan­cy cam­era or equip­ment; it’s about an hon­esty, atti­tude and commitment.

At the root of it all, though, is the fact that he is gen­uine­ly curi­ous about peo­ple. He is fas­ci­nat­ed by their choic­es, their habits – and hun­gry to explore their way of being in the world. There’s an explo­ration at the heart of his prac­tice. He breathes the same air as his sub­jects. Amaz­ing pic­tures emerge from this process as sure­ly as night fol­lows day.

“I’m fas­ci­nat­ed by the choic­es peo­ple make, and that’s what I pho­to­graph. And I want to make work that influ­ences people’s behav­iour and opin­ions. So pho­tog­ra­phy is per­fect, because I get to explore both,” Char­lie adds.

“I think these intrigues stem from grow­ing up in a mas­sive­ly diverse area. It’s all I’ve ever known. Pho­tog­ra­phy lets me engage with every­one, and under­stand them better.”

Thank you to Char­lie Kwai, who’s insa­tiable appetite for street-lev­el sto­ries made the film possible.

This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 2019.

Read more sto­ries from This Is Off The Wall, an edi­to­r­i­al part­ner­ship from Huck and Vans.

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