Since buying the Nikon ZF, I’ve had a change in workflow. Before with the Ricoh and Olympus, I would only shoot JPEG. With the Nikon, I’ve converted back to shooting Raw since I’d really like to get the most out of it. I’ve been toying around with a lot of profiles. The Nikon has a total of seven black and white profiles in Lightroom. Deep Tone Monochrome seems to be the most unique out of them so I think I’ll be using it for consistency. Here’s a few shots I made today.

LA usually isn’t the conversation for best street photography cities. The lack of robust public transportation and heavy dependence on cars being the main reason I hear. Reducing foot traffic on the streets limiting the opportunities we have to capture interesting moments. While this is certainly true, when LA hits, it hits hard. And better yet, you can enjoy a photo walk 365 days a year with near perfect weather. 

I’m not from LA and like to think that I’m not overly biased about the city. But I do feel as it’s underrated and often wonder why I’m almost always the only one wandering the streets aimlessly. I rarely see other street photographers roaming around. I actually prefer this as it feels like I’m the only one capturing the city. This seems odd as LA is the second largest city in the USA with endless possibilities. 

DTLA Street Photography

To me, Downtown Los Angeles provides the most opportunities. Many of the other spots for street photography is overrun by tourists. DTLA is not a tourist destination. It’s a grimy city center that will often leave you questioning California policy. The contrast in people walking the streets comes from every socioeconomic background. A far cry from my home base of Santa Monica which is a fairly relaxed beach town with a mix of yogis in Lululemon, tourists and drug addicts. DTLA has this and every other person imaginable walking around. It really is paradise for street photography and when it’s a nice sunny and 70 degree day it can’t get much better.

Me and my buddy Jay hit the DTLA streets on Saturday, February 10th. It was one of the best outings I’ve ever had downtown. The streets were filled with the people of street photographers dreams. The sun was shinning and the mood was just right. I snapped 695 photos with around 60 keepers on this day. We started in Little Tokyo.

The Japanese Village Plaza is a densely walked market filled with all sorts of characters. People here are very chill so its perfect place to get warmed up. It’s really cool to walk into a neighborhood and feel like you’re in another country. I would say over 90% of the people walking around in this neighborhood are of Asian decent. 

Inside the village, there is a small mall filled with toy shops and restaurants. I’m not educated at all on all the different toys, but it’s a colorful place. There’s always crowds of people in the stores looking around.

Across from the village is a small public plaza called the Isamu Noguchi Plaza. I’ve never seen anything going on there but on this day it was different. There’s was a competition happening in the theater next to the plaza and many groups of young Croatian dancers were outside practicing. It was a cool scene. I didn’t get any good pictures of them, but chatted with a guy and his cool dog.

And on the way out chatted with another cool guy with his cigar and snapped a photo of his 14 year old dog that looked blind to me. I didn’t take a picture of the man, but I was surprised when he told me that he’s lived in LA for 13 years and only been to Santa Monica twice. Goes to show you that 10 miles in LA is like a cross country trip.

And a few outside of the Village Plaza and on the way to another outdoor mall with more shops and restaurants. It’s not as busy as the first village but always worth a go.

After leaving the second market, were were headed to Olvera Street which is the oldest part of LA. It’s a street filled with Mexican shops and a public plaza. This day they were dancing to some traditional music. We just quickly walked on by. Didn’t get much on anything here as we were set on getting to Chinatown.

And here are a few photos from Olvera Street.

Chinatown is where I had the most luck on this day. It was filled with people from the Chinese New Year. I’ve been to Chinatown numerous times but never seen it like this. Was a really nice time and I got a few keepers. Post Covid LA on a sunny day is really where its at.

I looked for Chinese New Years events but didn’t see anything about celebrations. But as we approached the Central Plaza, there were definitely celebrations going on. A nice energy in the plaza and managed a few more keepers.

Happy with my keepers from the plaza. I was a bit tired at this point. Maybe if I had more energy I could’ve grabbed a few more keepers. The sun was also low so time for us to head back to Little Tokyo. On the way, definitely grabbed a few more shots.

Also, the Nikon ZF performed like a champion. I was shooting wide open with the 40mm easily nailing focus on everyone. Using a camera like this is a blast and makes capturing the moment much easier. My previous favorite street cameras were the Ricoh GRIII and Leica Q2 Monochrom. The ZF has taken the top spot and it the more capable camera for me.

So ya, I love shooting street photography in Los Angeles. It’s easily a top destination for street photography. Personally, I prefer LA to any city in the US. It doesn’t have as many opportunities as other cities like New York and San Francisco but the great weather and potential make up for it. I like being the only one taking photos. We only saw two other photographers on this day and we were shooting for over four hours in dense neighborhoods. This to me is the perfect situation.