I'm Waiting For?
Mar, 2016Views
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Shutterbug_14
May 11, 2016
Oh wow! This shot is amazing! I love how you bring attention to the book's title by doing a color pop. It's like she's waiting for the Hogwarts express with her trunks. Amazing work.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I thought it was about time I took myself outside my photography comfort zone, which is photographing things that don’t move and can’t answer back. So why not dive straight in at the deep end and have a go at street photography! It was with some trepidation that I journeyed to Covent Garden, in London, and started pointing my camera at people! Using a zoom lens is cheating, as the pictures will reflect the distance that you are from the person, so I used a 50mm to make sure I had to get reasonably close in.Time
The photo was taken mid morning, but as the day was a little overcast the light was reasonably diffuse, with no harsh shadows to overcome.Lighting
Whilst the light would of course have been far better first thing in the morning, there would have been far fewer people around (and I thought in the evening there might be too many). So a mid morning visit felt about right. Although this is not the best time of day for light, the day was quite overcast; so with the diffuse light I had no issues with shadows or glare. As this was street photography, it didn’t feel right to use a speedlight – which I’m not certain would have added anything to the picture anyway!Equipment
The picture was taken on a Nikon D800; normally I have the optional battery grip on the camera, but had removed that to make it a little less obtrusive. Lens was the sublime Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art. Keeping with the unobtrusive vibe, no tripods, no flash, no reflectors, no… … well you get the idea, nothing else!Inspiration
The girl was standing there engrossed in her book and the windows and surrounds behind her made a great symmetrical background. The packages added mystery: what was in them? Had she collected them, or was she delivering them? This was one of the first shots that I took that day; I felt ‘safe’ as she was reading she was unlikely to notice me! However as the day wore on, I grew increasingly brave at where I pointed my camera – and not once did I get challenged by any of my subjects!Editing
Most of the images felt best in Black & White to reflect the street photography vibe. This was the same, but I just felt the little bits of colour drew you further into the image. Yes, I know such techniques are a little overused, even amateurish, but for me they enhanced the picture: the slash of red across the lips; the coloured cover of the book making its title leap out at you. To achieve that result I first processed in Lightroom to make all the main adjustments, before moving to Photoshop so that I could build layers for the colur and black and white elements.In my camera bag
I normally have too much equipment in my bag! I might need this, I might need that, I’ll put this in just in case… … Camera and lenses are all Nikon (except the Sigma 50mm that I used on this occasion). Lenses are a mixture of primes and zooms; I prefer the primes but sometimes you need the flexibility of the zoom if you are on unknown territories. But I have dispensed with the cheaper zooms, which sound great when you can go from 18 to 200, or 70 to 300, but the results are never quite as good and I’ve always regretted buying them after the event. Easy for me to say – the bank manager might tick me off over such minute differences in results!!Feedback
Try it! I was really nervous at the start of the day, expecting people to accost me, shout at me even, for taking their picture. But do you know, throughout the whole day, not one of them did! Each time I pressed the shutter, I got that little bit bolder! If you are really nervous another technique that you could try is opting for an even wider lens, say a 24mm, which will capture a wider scene and shoot ‘from the hip’ – in other words, hold the camera around waist level point roughly in the direction of your subject and shoot (ideally using a mid range aperture to keep plenty of the scene in focus). Expect to get a far greater number of failures, and perhaps to have to do a bit of cropping. But it will help build confidence in this style as no one will realise they are having their picture taken.
