1 Lens - 1 Hour street shoot - Episode 3 - Portraiture

Now this is what most of us photographers do want to shoot. Portraits are the medium that captures the soul and spirit of the city and the street that you shoot in. There s a lot of debate about the ethics and dos and donts in these kind of shots and there would be many who disagree with my ideals.

You can do these shots in different ways and possibly the most common way among many I have seen is to use a telephoto lens and snipe from a distance. Some tend to justify this by saying its the only real 'candid' way of doing it. But I personally dislike it due to many reasons.

1. It comes a little creepy when you do it. I will stop this line of thoughts right here :)
2. It lacks the soul of the person since you don't get up close. Not that I never shot from a bit far away.... but if the surrounding environment does not provide a lot of context, I tend not to do that.

Getting close means using a bit of wide angle, which works well. Since you are not shooting beauty or glamor on the streets, its OK to have some distortions imho. But when you do get close, you are definitely interacting with the subject. I personally ask the subject 95% of the time for permission and I m always surprised the positive feedback I v had when I ask upfront. I remember one guy saying no, if I am shooting for a newspaper once :D. As I said, some will say that this is not the candid way.. But I believe its the only way that both parties will depart with a smile on their face. It will also build up your confidence a lot mind you.

The pics below were all taken after talking to the subject and getting their OK to shoot. I have intentionally given almost no instructions on their expressions etc..

This is one of the first on the hour... He was a real nice guy with a great personality. The was in his eyes and wanted to get that expression. 

Once I shot the guy above, he caught up to me and asked if I would like to shoot his friend too. That s an instant plus of asking people and being upfront about my intentions. What got my attention was his sun glasses.. so thought to make them the focus of attention.

This person was waiting for his bus and just moved away when I came in with the camera thinking he was in my shot. I told him that its him who makes my shot and not the landscape. He was OK with it and continued what he was doing.. Smoking...

I saved the best for the end.. I loved this guy's personality. It was cold that morning and he was smoking while drinking a cup of coffee. I asked him if he mind standing in for a portrait. He said sure. I showed him the result on the back of my camera after shooting and he was really happy with it.  For me this picture has a deep story.. about life, experience and sorrow. I ll let you fill in the gaps :)

Would love to hear your thoughts about this topic. Comment below or send an e-mail to continue this discussion.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced or published without a written consent from the author. 

Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/91953384@N02/

Thank you.
Akila.

1 Lens - 1 Hour street shoot - Episode 2 - Using Graffiti

This is the second episode of the street shoot series and will talk a little bit about using Graffiti.

Graffiti is writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface, often in a public place. [source - Wikipedia]

As the definition states, these can vary from random scribbles to amazing artwork and framing them properly could give a lot of definition for your photographs. Specially the colorful ones have the ability to capture the attention of the viewer. In this post, I will share some of the pics I took of Graffiti and wall paintings and discuss the thought process behind each frame.

Here s more straightforward case... The light was intriguing for me cos it gives the feel of a tunnel without the heavy shadows that comes with it. The frame was shifted to one side, not to create interest, but to capture the side which got my interest better.

This frame for me creates interest simply due to the fact that most things don't relate to each other. Sounds counter intuitive.. right? But such combinations do work. May not be for all.

There s an old say in photography.. says if a photograph is boring.. add some red into it :) That's exactly what I did here... The background was interesting enough.. But this shinny little red car adds a punch to the shot.

When I saw these words and some flames below, all kinds of light bulbs started to go in my head... Once I framed it in this way, do I have to tell you where lawyers would end up? :D  That in itself is a story.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced or published without a written consent from the author. 

Thank you.
Akila.

1 Lens - 1 Hour street shoot - Episode 1 - Framing people with context

Since I have been bogged down and writing my thesis for a couple of months now, my camera and myself have been pretty distant. But I decided to go out and do a street shoot for the very first time in my life for 1 HOUR (cos that's how long I had coins for parking) in down town London, Ontario. Oh, I also got a spanking new Sigma 24-105 f/4 OS Art lens and that was the other reason I went out :). So as usual, I turned my laziness into a challenge and brought just that 1 lens with me.

So, all in all, I came back with about 40 usable  + 20 good shots as a result. They will be presented and discussed as a series of posts in the coming weeks on my blog.

This week, its all about framing people with context. This creates a story in the image and sometimes. the human element is just there to fill in a void or add something to the image. Take a look at the pics I have listed below. I will try to give some catchy titles to some of them, so that you ll see how it works.

By the way, the Sigma lens was superb and was more than I expected from a third party lens. I would recommend it in a heartbeat. 

"Boys will be boys"   - In this picture, the story is completely created by the attractive young girl and the way the guy's head turns to see her.

 Fantasy Vs Reality - The whole idea of this pic for me was to capture the difference between the fantasy comic world and the reality. The subject in this pic looks really tired and feeling down as opposed to the energetic store sign.

 Watch out for the Pacman - This is a case, where the subjects adds a punch to the background.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject. 

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced or published without a written consent from the author. 

Thank you.
Akila.