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How to Capture the Soul of the Streets Through a Lens

“The Art of Window Reflections” © Nancy Rich

Intro by Mark Weber M.Photog, Cr., Master Artist, CPP

The heartbeat of a city comes alive through the artistry of street photography. We navigate the streets with a lens focused on capturing the soul of the city, unraveling stories hidden in the hustle and bustle, and freezing fleeting moments in time.

In this case, Nancy Rich created one of my favorite street images through a reflection technique. I adore how things blend and transition into one image that becomes almost surreal.

I spotted this image in the PPA Image Excellence book while skimming through it for about the hundredth time. These books are such a wonderful source of inspiration and this one really made me stop and study it. So I contacted Nancy to find out more about how it was created and why.

I had the pleasure of meeting Nancy and her husband at our booth at this year’s Imaging USA in Louisville, KY. She is as nice as she is talented. Here’s what she had to share about her image.


The Art of Window Reflections was taken on a summer morning in downtown Quebec City.  I was standing across the street from an art gallery that had a large and very colorful collage hanging across the breadth of its front window.  

Instead of looking directly at the gal­lery, I turned and faced the windowfront of the building behind me.  It was reflecting the collage in a way that I found fascinating. I waited for people to walk along the sidewalk in front of the gallery to give my image a sense of movement.  The reflections in the windowfront highlighted the bright colors that splashed across the woman’s light-colored clothing.

I did a very minimal amount of Photoshop editing to this photograph. I shot it with a Canon 24 mm lens, at 1/250th of a second at f5.6, and with an ISO setting of 800.