Walk On By
A man begs on the streets of Hong Kong. A couple of friends and I came across him while wandering the city streets, and decided to buy him some food. While my f...
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A man begs on the streets of Hong Kong. A couple of friends and I came across him while wandering the city streets, and decided to buy him some food. While my friends went to get the food, I grabbed this shot, thankfully coming out fairly sharp despite not being able to use a tripod or any other makeshift support to steady the slow shot.
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Mar, 2016Views
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Awards
People's Choice in Crowd of People Photo Challenge
All Star
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
Superb Composition
Peer Award
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
![A duckling in Chrischurch's Botanical Gardens [NZ] running through the grass.](https://cdnpt01.viewbug.com/media/mediafiles/2014/09/30/33934601_widepreview400.webp)
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo on the streets of Hong Kong. A couple of friends and I were just wandering the streets, waiting for the rest of the group we were travelling with to fly in from Australia when we came across this guy, begging on the sidewalk.Time
This would have been taken sometime mid-afternoon on a cloudy day, giving good dispersion of light despite the tall buildings around.Lighting
I love using natural light most of the time, only resorting to artificial lighting for specific shots. So with the cloud dispersing the light throughout the scene, the lighting was very balanced in the shot. The clouds also meant the light wasn't super bright, allowing me to use a slower shutter speed to blur the passers-by. I don't have any filters at the moment [they're on the list...], so I just had to do the best I could with the camera alone, helped by the dimming effect from the clouds.Equipment
I didn't have my tripod with me at the time, unfortunately, so I had to make do with hand-holding a Canon 7d mark II, using a Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 ultra-wide lens.Inspiration
This was my first time really exploring a 'big city'... The South Island of New Zealand has very little in the way of 'big' anything, aside from in the natural world alone. So my exposure to true cities is very limited, and certainly Hong Kong was a very different experience for me, both for it's size and with it being my first time in Asia. As we came across this guy, I was hit by just how skinny he was, and how hopeless his posture was, hunched over, being ignored by every single person who walked by. I wanted to tell the untold story, to show the hidden truths of this world, to give this voiceless being a form of voice.Editing
I really wanted to highlight the begging man, and to show the contrast between him and everything else. So I played with a number of different effects in post, settling with this one. I used Lightroom 5 to process the single raw file, increasing the contrast overall, along with adjusting the colours with saturation and vibrancy tweaks. To isolate the man, I used a combination of circular filters and specific colour adjustments, with the circular filters firstly removing all colour with the saturation slider from most of the image, as well as adding a bit of extra contrast and darkening to the black and white regions, before finishing off the little bits of colour still left around him by taking the saturation of those colours to -100, like green. Finally, I also used the circular filters to blur the surroundings a bit in order to further isolate the man, as I had had to use a very tight aperture in order to blur the movement of the passers-by in the first place.In my camera bag
First of all, I pack my Canon 7d mark II - it's super tough for the price, which is great for a guy who travels a lot to places that can be rough on equipment. Because I regularly shoot a very wide range of photos, I'll normally carry 5 lenses with me: a Canon 24-105mm f/4 L for general use, a Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 and a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L to cover the ultra-wide and telescopic ranges, finishing with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 and a Canon 100mm macro f/2.8 L to cover low-light, shallow DoF, and macro uses. I carry cleaning gear with me - travelling a lot requires my gear to be portable, too - as well as a wired remote shutter release and spare batteries and CF and SD cards.Feedback
The best piece of advice I can give with something like this, is to see with your heart, not just your eyes. Let your heart be soft towards others and their situations, not solely focused on your own self and your own agenda. Then engage your heart in your photography, looking to really capture those heartfelt feelings in an image - and be creative with this, because each feeling is unique, so each shot from that will also be unique. Think about perspective - to shoot from high up, from a perspective removed from the subject, or to get down to their level and see things from their perspective instead. Also be patient if it's not quite the time for the shot you want. With this, I had to wait for enough people to be walking by all at once, and all fast enough, in order to achieve the desired blurred and crowded effect. So be patient, be creative, and see with your heart.
