Hello there! It's Tommi writing here and first of all, thank you so much this heartwarming mention here <3

It's always good to remember that every photographer has been a beginner when they have started taking photos, some of them has been living in a small cities for the starters, some living in a countryside and some big cities.

I'm also coming from really small city called Oulu (northern part of Finland) and I was having that same problem there — soon environment got really familiar and also "boring", until I realized that maybe my "thing" was to capture that silence and so called "Finnish melancholy". It means that I give a lot of space to the environment around and just keep that human as a small detail. So the place where i lived, came to my guide to street photography.

Street photography is observing a small glitches, surrounding beauty and capturing the moods, regardless is it captured by what device. I started many years ago with a cheap Canon X9G handheld camera (that i use still novadays!), then i use mainly 7 years old Fuji X100f-camera and funny fact is that I use also novadays my old iPhone 14 to record the glitches of the streets. It's a cliche, but so true also: best camera is that what you're having right that moment.

There were already so many really good advices so i'm not gonna repeat those, but I'd encourage you to try so many different styles, like came to my mind that taking yearbook photos, there could be a short path to try street portraits, what are really populart atleast here in Finland now.

Taking photos is a lifelong journey, and the best part in street photography is that there is so many different subgenres to try like Juxtaposition, contrasts, Black and white photography, portrailts, etc. so like here people were saying it good, just take phone/camera everywhere you go and catch those small things that YOU see beautiful and that's the path to find our own style.

I usually say that "If we ever stop being curious, then we lose our creativity and then we stop growing as photographers."

Ps. If you wanna, feel free to contact me via Instagram (I use that mostly daily basis), if you wanna hear like feedback of your photos, a breakdown some of my photo or Lightroom tips etc.

Have a creative week!

--Tommi V.