Street Shots 1-2-3: One

This week, I'd like to share with you some personal experience in taking street shots. This is the first post.

(The Metalsmith: He sits in front of his tiny shop, bearing his upper body and chitchatting with his friends. I figured out how to take the shot some 30 steps away. The shot was done as I walked past him without alarming him)

I have been working on several on-going photographic assignments, some finished whereas some not quite. In either case, apart from the busyness of life which affords me little time to sort the photos and research about each topic, the daily street shots have generated a certain amount of interesting images for me to write about each day. By the way, the number of photos posted on this site is nearing 500.

Of the street shots I have taken, images of human conditions account for a lion's share. Among them, I surmise that over half were taken at a close distance. By the word "close", I mean within one metre, or around 3 feet. You may review your simiar street shots to come up with the ideal fixed focusing distance. My experience tells me that in a busy walking precinct, be it a street or a shopping centre, the human subject beyond one metre can give rise to two problems.

First, the subject will lack punch as it makes up too small a portion in the photo, provided that the focal length is at or less than 35mm (more on this later).

Second, the background will include more complimentary/ secondary information of a similar dimensional proportion to the subject, diluting the theme of the photo which you hope to convey.

So, one metre away is my counsel from experience for this type of street shots. Of course, it is a totally different matter if you ask the suject for permission to shot. I do it occasionaly, mostly when I really have to stop to come up with a good compositon.

(The Young-at-Heart-and-in-Posture: I was amused by this man in his late 50s who, wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of briefs, perched on the railing next to a busy road junction. Fact is, this was a rather teenage-sitting posture beffiting neither his age nor clothing style. I figured out the composition when on the other side of the road, and took the shot as I, not quite having finished crossing the road, walked up to him)

How Do I Manage to Get so Close?

My street photos themed on human conditions were largely taken when I was moving on the road. With my GX200 neckstripped around my neck (the neckstrip is like a safety belt if your city is as bustling because chances are that someone may bump into you and knock your camera off incidentially; I once knocked off a passer-by's cellphone), I usually keep scanning the street around and ahead as I walk on. I anticipate a scene and keep my camera turned on to capture it at its first emergence.

It is worth noting that my GX200 is kept on always with the lens pointed to the floor with my palm covering the LCD. The is for protection because in the crowded and busy areas jampacked with buildings old and new, kudos to the air-conditioners and whatnots, water drippings from the buildings and edges of the roofs happen. This holding position has effectively saved my GX200 from the water drippings on several occasions. Besides this, since dust are subject to gravity by and large, this position also prevents dust from settling on the lens and the retractable sleeve.

Oh, mark that dust is extremely severe in a flea market.

(A Rare Sight: The rare sight is not about the skin colour for sure. I seldom see man carrying girlie figures. But this rather macho guy uses a girl and a yellowish chicken keychain each on either strip of his backpack, which was what interested me to take the picture as he walked along. The image is left tilting from left up which gives a feeling of force to his walking posture, coincidentially matching the direction of his gaze. Just in case you don't know, the left-up-to-right diagonal contradicts our reading habit and is usually used to show, for one thing, a sense of force)

Now, back to my scanning and anticipation of a scene for a shot.

Since these possible scenes of passers-by present themselves in a split of second, and I am on the move, I need a constant setting which suits such circumstances best. I assign the customizable mode MY1 for this setting: focus fixed at just over 1 metre; manual metering; focal length at 28mm; ISO at 200.

Let me explain these settings a bit tomorrow.