Eyes Only for You

[robertmpoole]

I read this quote by Gary Ayala ex news reporter and Fuji shooter.

The Code:

Shoot with Respect.

Life is a two-way street. Shoot how you would want to be captured if you were on the other end of the camera. To me shooting from the hip is sneaky. Sneaky is disrespectful. I tried shooting from the hip. When I was finished I wanted to take a shower. Other*photogs*are fine with shooting from the hip, they call it stealth … and that’s okay, I don’t give a rat’s what others do. Shooting from the hip just isn’t me. Remember that you are on your subject’s street. That is where they work and play. It is their front yard and their*backyard … treat*it with respect.

Shoot in the Open

I prefer shooting everything with two cameras. One camera setup with for long and the other camera setup for wide, I don’t change my preferred shooting methodology for Street. *I shoot with the EVF. *I shoot with a camera bag hanging off a shoulder. *I shoot in plain sight. That is part of the Challenge of Street for me, to capture the exceptional photograph according to my code.

http://vicsfujixblog.com/2014/08/29/...t-photography/

[just me]

Robert...thank you for posting the link to the article......I read it with great interest.......

Griddi.......

[Manfred M]

Thanks for taking the time with this Manfred.

I think that whilst I 100% percent agree with your comments as generalisations, I think that the image works better as a whole.

A. The title of the shot, combined with the positioning of the subjects against the fact that the human eye tends to view left to right, serves to demonstrate who is the primary subject and who is a secondary player. YMMV

Your crop of the kissing couple is a little tight IMO and suffers with the incursion into the frame of the bench you're not able to crop out. Of course it could be cloned out, but then it looks like you're spying on teenage kids kissing = creepy

The extraction of the second image of the two ladies is simply a shot of the backside of two women. I'm sure there's a popularity for that sort of thing (all those rap songs can't be wrong ) but there's no story, there's no engagement.

The light was harsh that day, it was a bit of an impromptu photo walk, and conditions weren't ideal. DOF is governed to a certain extent by equivalence, but my 35 F1.4 lens on APSC won't look a million miles away from the DOF of a 50mm F2. At longer tele lengths DOF becomes quite shallow on all but the smaller sensor cameras

I'm not sure if you've seen the other thread I started today?

But this shot is from the same afternoon and as you can see I can work with shallow DOF quite happily if the mood takes me

I'm not a seasoned street 'tog, in fact its something I've only recently started to develop a taste for... But my interest in it, currently centers around the observance of the human animal, which at my current level, means wanting a shot with interaction (or the lack of interaction) in it, by so fair this generally means multiple subjects.

I'm not planning to go and buy a FF camera just to have a street tool, in fact IIRC all those street togs seem to swear by M6s or M9s with 28 or 35 'crons, so wide can work quite well for street IMO. YMMV.

But PLEASE don't think I don't value your (or anyone's input) into my shots, we are all still learning, and my I truly feel I've received some wonderful tips, advice and encouragement during my fairly brief time here

Adam - I wasn't thinking that either of the two crops I pulled out of your image are stand-alone images, but my point was simply that having two such major elements added complexity into your image and that complexity results in a composition that is less strong than it could be.

The issue with the harsh lighting was another point where I am suggesting that sometimes the lighting conditions will create conditions where I will walk away from taking a shot just because it isn't going to work for me.

I'm not suggesting that you go FF, but as you have noted the M6 and M9 are FF cameras and help in that direction. You gain a stop of DoF with the APS-C sensor in your camera. I run into an even more of this issue when I use my mFT for this type of work with the 14-140mm lens I tend to travel with.

My overall comment on this image is that I find it extremely busy. One of the most powerful compositional tools that a photographer has is simplification. The first step of simplification that you have used is going B&W. The other things I have suggested you look at will help you create stronger compositions in street work by removing elements that add complexity to the scene. If you look at many of the classic street images they tend to isolate the subject amongst the environment that the subjects are found in

[Manfred M]

I read this quote by Gary Ayala ex news reporter and Fuji shooter.

The Code:

Shoot with Respect.

Life is a two-way street. Shoot how you would want to be captured if you were on the other end of the camera. To me shooting from the hip is sneaky. Sneaky is disrespectful. I tried shooting from the hip. When I was finished I wanted to take a shower. Other*photogs*are fine with shooting from the hip, they call it stealth … and that’s okay, I don’t give a rat’s what others do. Shooting from the hip just isn’t me. Remember that you are on your subject’s street. That is where they work and play. It is their front yard and their*backyard … treat*it with respect.

Shoot in the Open

I prefer shooting everything with two cameras. One camera setup with for long and the other camera setup for wide, I don’t change my preferred shooting methodology for Street. *I shoot with the EVF. *I shoot with a camera bag hanging off a shoulder. *I shoot in plain sight. That is part of the Challenge of Street for me, to capture the exceptional photograph according to my code.

http://vicsfujixblog.com/2014/08/29/...t-photography/

Robert - thanks for posting and let me respectfully lift another quote from the article:


"The following is my code and if you like it, great. If you don’t like it, well that’s great too."

I totally agree with respect, but we live in a world where there we are constantly being observed by security cameras that are taking our images without any thoughts about respect or privacy. There are places where I ask permission to take peoples pictures and others where I do shoot off the hip to get the shot. I won't use an image where someone is doing something that would embarrass them, but if they are going about their day to day business in public, capturing that is fine in my books. I find Ayala's thoughts on shooting off the hip somewhat hypocritical; as any image taken where the subject doesn't recognize that his picture is being taken is no more or less sneaky than the off the hip approach. Some of the shots shown in the linked article certainly seem to fall into that category.

I've traveled extensively in both the developed and developing world. The rules of what can and cannot be done vary amongst different cultures and I always ensure I understand any taboos associated with imagery before it start to shoot.

My biggest issue with Ayala's approach is that you get a posed image with it. The moment the subject recognizes the camera, his or her expression starts to change, and while I sometimes want that type of image, often I would rather present the subject in their natural, rather than posed, state. In fact, I would argue that he is presenting an unrealistic, artificial view of his subject. Look at the techniques that Henri Cartier-Bresson (the father of photojournalism / street photography) used, with his tiny, Leica camera, with tape covering the branding. At times, he was the ultimate "sneak" photographer, and we look up to him and respect his work.

[Shadowman]

I like the Ayala's quote about getting a code also, "You street photographers out there without a code...get one...give it some thought. You can steal mine, steal Vic's...I'd just steal one."

The advice is so open ended that even if the photographer developed a code, it doesn't mean the adopted code would respect the subject or the art. I guess the ethical strength of the SP's adoptive code would depend upon the time taken to form it or steal it.