David Wagstaff-Myers Photography

Street photography is exciting, unpredictable, and endlessly varied. But there’s a catch: sometimes the sheer openness of it all can feel paralysing. You step out with your camera, look around at the bustle, and suddenly you don’t know where to point the lens. Everything feels too much—or worse, too ordinary. That’s where projects come in. They give you purpose. They narrow the field and sharpen your eye. And importantly, they can be as big or as small as you like. Some projects grow over months, becoming bodies of work. Others are “micro projects” — simple, playful challenges that you can complete in a single afternoon. I was recently part of a conversation about exactly this struggle. The question was:  “I’m primarily a street photographer, but I’m struggling to pick projects. Can you suggest five?” The reply was brilliant: practical, fun, and rooted in the everyday reality of being out on the streets with a camera. What follows are those ideas, expanded with examples and prompts...

There’s a special kind of stillness that comes with watching boats drift quietly on a sunlit harbour.  Sailboats and Sunlight  is a piece inspired by that exact moment — a peaceful pause, caught between tide and sky, painted straight from memory and affection for the Yorkshire coast. This artwork, like so many of my coastal scenes, was born from time spent watching light play across the water at  Whitby Harbour . It’s a place that always calls me back — as a photographer, as a painter, and as someone who just finds calm in the sea’s quiet rhythm. The Beauty of Whitby Harbour There’s nowhere quite like  Whitby Harbour . A mix of fishing boats and pleasure craft, aged piers and salty air — it’s full of character. That soft clatter of rigging, the glint of morning light off wet wood, the gentle sway of the tide. These are the moments I try to capture in my  coastal art  — not just what it looks like, but how it feels to be there. For me,  marine scenery ...