A New Beginning — Joe Jasper Photography

One of the trickiest things about being a street photographer is navigating development and growth as an artist. As I'm sure is the case with many street photographers, I view my work as more of a career than a hobby. Although there isn't the gratification of financial rewards for my hard work, I get the satisfaction of creating meaningful pieces, capturing moments of emotion and humanity - and that's all fine for me. That being said, this satisfaction-based reward system is not as simple in terms of tracking progress and advancement. For example, I can see that I've gone to the next step in my career by looking at promotions, raises, bonuses, and new positions.

Anyways, the point of this long-winded spiel is that it can be hard to tell whether or not I'm getting anywhere in Street Photography as a field. One way that I measure success is via 'extra-curricular' street photography activities. Past examples would be winning Honorable Mention in FXBG's Street Shoot Off, being featured by DC and Denver's SPC Collectives, and having my photo book being featured on Josh Katz's YouTube Channel. These, admittedly small, wins represent items I can check off my Street Photography bucket list if you will.

Well, recently I checked off another big box on that list: teaching my first Street Photography Class on behalf of Baltimore Photo Group.

This class was a Beginner to Street Photography Class and to my surprise sold out! We had a group of six plus myself, and like me, this was all of their first photography class as well. Going in I was incredibly nervous, and the first ten minutes of the class were a bumbling mess of a blab on the definition and purpose of street photography.

Thankfully my students stuck with me and once it was time for the first challenge, everything clicked into place. Without sharing too many details, the class consisted of the introduction and five challenges over the course of three hours. Time flew by, and by the end, our feet were hurting and we were all ready for coffee, but most importantly we had all worked together to build upon different elements of street photography including identifying subjects, composing a scene, and telling a story. These challenges came together and by the end, my students had progressed from not knowing what street photography was to creating images that I was frankly jealous I didn't take.

I swear I have never had an experience quite as gratifying as getting to witness the growth of my group, watching them build confidence, and ultimately having the opportunity to share something I am so passionate about.

To make sure I wasn't a one-hit-wonder, the next week I led another class, this time a 2-hour meetup focusing on Black & White photography. In this meetup, we had less time and a larger group, so we focused on a couple of larger themes with the goal of creating minimal yet captivating photos.

Once again, the experience was amazing, the group got really into the theme and, more importantly, connected with each other and bounced ideas off one another. This time around the group had slightly more experience, and as a result, they were very responsive to our challenges and created some fantastic photos.

I think one of the best things about the experience of leading these two sessions was the opportunity it gave me to practice and focus on more structured themes. In both classes, I had the opportunity to participate in the challenges and use my experience to illustrate the different themes, and in both classes, I came away with some images I am really proud of. I have always thought one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it, and these classes proved no exception. I'll share some of my photos below:

Overall, I am SO glad that I had this opportunity and will continue to plan and lead classes like this as long as Baltimore Photo Group will have me. I was so nervous and afraid going in that I would fail and make a fool of myself, but I ended up not only successfully connecting with these amazing groups of people, but also just having a great time and a lot of fun! I hope that teaching can remain a part of my Street Photography journey and that I can continue helping others learn about my greatest passion.

Thanks for reading, and if you want to keep up with me make sure to follow along on Instagram and YouTube!