Note: Every Wednesday, I feature street photographers with great skill and soul. For this week, I decided to feature amazing street photographer Thomas Leuthard. I first met Thomas online when he decided to generously donate a large sum of money to help support my street photography trip to Beirut, Lebanon. After meeting in Lebanon, he was my guest speaker for my Street Photography 101 workshop and we became great friends as well. His technique and vision is exceptional, and I am constantly inspired by his work.
Also feel free to check out all of the other featured street photographers of the week here!
1. How did you get started in street photography?

This is difficult to say as there is no real start “date”. I was shooting a lot of things when I started in early 2008. I was 3.5 weeks in Beijing during the Olympics and there I somehow got infected to shoot people in their everyday life on the streets. But I didn’t realize that at that time. On a trip to Hamburg Germany in October 2008 I take probably my first street photo on purpose, which I still like very much. A little bit later I got my Nikon D90, took another course in photography and I remember very well, when we went to Strasbourg, France, with this class. There was a beggar outside of the cathedral asking for money. I gave her 1 Euro and take some pictures of here. This was the moment when I started to shoot people’s portraits from short distance. But it really started when I bought my 85mm lens in May 2009. Then I decided to shoot only with this lens in the streets and call me 85mm.