Interview with Tom Pitts, Winner of DSPF 2025 single image category
Tom is an award-winning photographer, and current Hasselblad Master, based in Cheltenham, UK. Tom first started street photography 3 years ago, after the end of the Covid pandemic, while he was living in London. He is a Pro Member of The Raw Society an international collective whose mission is to educate, promote, and create community, in street and documentary photography.
Winning Entry
My winning entry to the Singles competition at Dublin Street Photography Festival is called ‘The Last Lokma’. I was in Istanbul and happened to walk past a food truck which was handing out free Lokma (a type of Turkish doughnut). Due to the Lokma being free there was a massive crowd of people around the truck jostling for position. I must have taken 20-30 frames from various angles before there was a brief pause as the food truck started to run out. It was at this moment that I captured the last serving remaining, with three different hands all in the air reaching for it. The lady on the right of the frame has a steely determination to get it!
Aims and Goals for the future
I am currently working on various projects, and my aim is to build a strong enough body of work over the next few years to be able to generate sufficient interest to publish a book / exhibit. The project I am working on which is most developed is at my hometown racecourse in Cheltenham. I will be publishing a photographic story from the recent Cheltenham Festival in the next issue of the quarterly Raw Society magazine.
Advice for street photographers starting out
There is no substitute for putting in the steps and practising! Buy a comfortable pair of trainers that you can easily do 20,000-30,000 steps in during a single day. You also don’t need to travel to a major city like London to find good opportunities to photograph – several images from my winning series for the Hasselblad Masters were taken 10 minutes from my front door. Finally, don’t fall into the trap of gear acquisition. Some of the best photographers I know use a beaten-up Fuji X-Pro 2.
