There are many ingredients to successful street photography, but surely one of the greatest is being brave. You can have the best gear and brilliant technique, but it still takes a certain amount of guts to thrust yourself and your camera into the middle of human life. And if you have the guts, it’s as accessible as stepping out of your front door.

Despite years of experience in candid and documentary photography, for Thomas Kakareko, it’s still this heady blend of risk and reward that draws him onto the street. It’s a thrill that’s as strong now as the first time he ventured out armed with nothing more than a camera phone. And, if anything, it’s those pure and traditional aspects of street shooting that keep him coming back.

“Much of my recent street work has been in a more artistic or illustrative style,” he says, “with an urban vibe, like city landscape with a human element. What really inspires me though, is the more emotional side of this subject, and the thrill of being in the middle of a crowd. That’s made me want to move away from shooting silhouettes and anonymous figures like I’ve been doing and go back to something more raw.”

“I wanted to return to capturing images where you can see a person’s face, the emotion they’re feeling, and maybe even feel the thrill of them seeing you. A split-second interaction or exchange that’s honest and unrepeatable,” he continues. “It’s a style that’s closer to the origins of street photography.”

One Thomas’s favourite ways to do this is to shoot couples on the street. “These images aren’t staged at all. They’re totally candid. I just look for people passing by in the city or stopping together. And you can observe these very pure emotions as they communicate or just show you how they feel with their body language. When you capture these interactions and moments, it’s like a little spark caught by the camera – a pure human element in an urban background, with great light, and a couple immersed in each one another.”

Like any street photography, to do this, the most important thing in this is not being seen, Thomas says. “You have to disappear. Though, the funny thing is that with couples it’s not that hard. They’re often so focused on each other they may not notice you!”

“When I started out in street photography, I was shooting with a phone and that makes it easy to remain hidden, because everyone has them in their hands all the time. So you can be shooting while pretending to play a game, or checking the news. With a proper camera, like the Sony Alpha 7R IV that I now use, the extra quality you get is amazing, but you need to use it in a way that doesn’t attract attention.”

“The mere action of moving a camera up to your eye makes people notice you or act differently, and that means you can lose the decisive moment. That’s why it’s easier to shoot people from behind, or from a distance when using a proper camera. In countering that, a lot of the Alpha 7R IV’s features come into play. In particular the articulating screen, which can be tilted and flipped out, letting me shoot more easily from the hip or from low down near the ground. With a phone, I used to pretend to be tying my shoelaces, and with the Alpha 7R IV’s screen you can do something similar.”

Working in that way, the Alpha 7R IV’s autofocus also plays its part, Thomas says, being able to keep subjects in focus while he concentrates on composition and remaining invisible, “and it allows me to work at a very shallow depth of field and deal with cluttered city scenes,” he adds, “without the point of sharpness slipping away from where it’s supposed to be.”

Often making short Instagram Reels during his street work, Thomas has also been pleased by the Alpha 7R IV’s ability to quickly switch from stills to video. “In just a flick of a switch I can capture the same scene,” he confirms, “without needing to change camera or lens, and that lets me make this content that combines photo and movies.”

So, street is a subject that requires and rewards bravery, but maybe the most courageous thing is to stick at it. “This kind of photography can be super difficult and highly unpredictable,” he confirms, “and you can spend weeks or months on the street and get nothing that excites you. But you always need to persevere because that’s what makes the good images even more special. When you get that perfect, million-dollar moment and freeze it in time, it’s just beautiful. I’m glad Sony is helping me return to that feeling.”