Supermarket scene you wouldn't likely see at home

[Manfred M]

I had just been chatting online with an acquaintance and we discovered both of us had been to Namibia. That brought back many memories, including this one.

We had stopped in the town of Opuwo, to fill up our 4x4 truck with fuel and to do a bit of shopping before we headed north to the border with Angola.

This is an "off the hip" shot I took in a supermarket; a Himba woman wearing traditional leather, a Herero woman in traditional dress based on European colonial clothing and a man that was in "normal" clothing.

[pnodrog]

Interesting. You weren't wearing a safari suit (with one of those hat) by any chance?

[Manfred M]

Interesting. You weren't wearing a safari suit (with one of those hat) by any chance?

Nope, I had left my pith helmet at home that day (yes I really do own one). The guy in the white T-shirt was probably well dressed when compared to what I was wearing. My wife and I were the only non-Africans in the store...

[mugge]

Great grab shot. Sometimes you just have to shoot and hope for the best.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

Great grab shot. Sometimes you just have to shoot and hope for the best.
Cheers Ole

Ole - while this might come as a bit of a surprise, this is anything but a grab shot. I purposefully changed lenses to give me a higher chance of success and targeted Himba women in and around the shop. I have 8 or 10 images that I took there. This is a classical "street photography" / photo-journalistic technique, where the photographer tries to ensure that the subject is unaware that they are being photographed and the shot is in no way posed. I know some street photographers who work the scene for hours and come back with just one or two "keepers". The success rate in this genre, even with highly experienced street photographers is somewhere between 1 in 50 and 1 in 20 shots.

A grab shot is a single or small series of shots that are 100% opportunistic and unplanned. The photographer grabs the shot and moves on. They generally lack cohesion and purpose; framing / composition tend to be suspect.

To quote Ansel Adams: "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."

[mugge]

Ole - while this might come as a bit of a surprise, this is anything but a grab shot. I purposefully changed lenses to give me a higher chance of success and targeted Himba women in and around the shop. I have 8 or 10 images that I took there. This is a classical "street photography" / photo-journalistic technique, where the photographer tries to ensure that the subject is unaware that they are being photographed and the shot is in no way posed. I know some street photographers who work the scene for hours and come back with just one or two "keepers". The success rate in this genre, even with highly experienced street photographers is somewhere between 1 in 50 and 1 in 20 shots.

A grab shot is a single or small series of shots that are 100% opportunistic and unplanned. The photographer grabs the shot and moves on. They generally lack cohesion and purpose; framing / composition tend to be suspect.

To quote Ansel Adams: "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."

That is a surprise to me that you were able to change lenses on the hop. I have a few favorite spots for my street photography and I invariably carry only my Fuji x100f. I do plan, but anything I photograph is opportunistic. The setting I'm in is conducive to street photography but nevertheless everything I get is opportunistic to my mind. Oh! my success rate is a bit higher than 1 in 50

[Manfred M]

That is a surprise to me that you were able to change lenses on the hop. I have a few favorite spots for my street photography and I invariably carry only my Fuji x100f. I do plan, but anything I photograph is opportunistic. The setting I'm in is conducive to street photography but nevertheless everything I get is opportunistic to my mind. Oh! my success rate is a bit higher than 1 in 50

Changing lenses on the hop was done in the truck I was driving, before entering this supermarket. I had lenses ranging from a 11-16mm ultra wide angle to a 150-500mm long lens with me, plus a couple of other lenses in more in the mid-range. When on a four week trip to Africa that was mostly going to be landscapes, people and wildlife, I had a whole range of gear along.

In street photography, things are somewhat "opportunistic", just as it will be in wildlife photography; you and your subject have to be there at the same time. That is where the opportunism ends, because the background, the camera settings and the framing of the shot should not be opportunistic, but planned.

There is a simple reason your success rate is as high as it is; your standard for what you consider to be a "good" image is lower than the "pros". I remember seeing some of Henri-Cartier Bresson's contact sheets and usually there would be one image and sometimes two marked as keepers. Sometimes there would be none. There are 30 35mm images on a contact sheet, so it shows how few keeper's a master like Cartier-Bresson considered as keepers in the film days. Generally as we get more experience, our standards get tighter.

[escape]

My success rate is much higher. I factor in other things like.
1. Did I drop the camera?
2. Did I come home with all the equipment I took with me?
3. Did I remember to take off my sunglasses when shooting so as not to underexpose? ( I did that.)

These additional factors can boost my success rating. When I had a boat, anytime I went out on the water and didn't run into another boat was a good day on the water.

[Manfred M]

When I had a boat, anytime I went out on the water and didn't run into another boat was a good day on the water.

When I was scuba diving a lot, we used to say "Any dive you came back alive from was a good dive". Based on that definition, I had hundreds of good dives, some of which were really crappy.

If you set the bar low enough, it's easy to get over it...

[xpatUSA]

It may be only me but it's amazing how the girl looks composited in -even though it's certain that no such thing was done.

[xpatUSA]

My success rate is much higher. I factor in other things like.
1. Did I drop the camera?
2. Did I come home with all the equipment I took with me?
3. Did I remember to take off my sunglasses when shooting so as not to underexpose? ( I did that.)

May I add from my shooting just yesterday:

4. Did I shoot with Sunlight WB under a fully overcast sky ... ;-)

[Manfred M]

It may be only me but it's amazing how the girl looks composited in -even though it's certain that no such thing was done.

That is an interesting comment. I wonder is this is more of a psychological issue because seeing someone in traditional Southern African clothing is so unexpected that it just doesn't look feasible.

That being said, someone else told me that this looked right out of an everyday occurrence at Walmart.


Here is the original raw file, if anyone wants to take a look. It's in my Dropbox and it downloadable via the link below.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/cf4gotu8px...C6542.NEF?dl=0

[ST1]

That's a very interesting image Manfred, looking at it there seems to be some sort of interaction between the two ladies, as though the one on the left has turned towards the other. My observation is based on my perception of the hair movement of the lady on the left. Well seen and taken


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk