Time by time it is so nice to take a day off to do some street photography.. while once a year will sometimes do, based on the experience this time, it would not hurt at all to practice it more often :-)
Got a fancy old-school lens lately, a lovely Nikkor 200mm F4 AI MF, so basically, I went down to the city to learn about the lens and to see what it was capable for. As with understanding the characteristics of it now, I've made some progress. With regards to what it can produce, you can take a closer look as follows - every single on in this post is made using this lens (I'm currently using a DX 1.5 crop factor camera, so unit actually worked as 300mm F4).
So what IS street photography? Moments with some story around it? Walking around with extra battery for your baby at your pocket and having the shutter release button burned so that there's no way later to accommodate your images to your hard disk later?
Not sure, but for me, it is something very simple. When there's street, there are people walking on it, doing something. Whenever there are people, there's always life with them. Whenever there's life around, there's always something to take a photograph of. And perhaps to tell a story later.
New people, so many faces, newborn and seniors, the way they walk, the way they talk - ain't that something admirable? So common, so usual, so daily, but still - so beautiful moments.
What a nice street entertainment - see the vibrant air around her once the flames are gone.
Must it be real life always or can it be something that brings life to photograph? A machine perhaps, even a dull van can look good, when the light is good. Look at the photo for a second and imagine something/someone else there, instead of the gray van. Wouldn't it look great with the light like this? A natural studio it was. Just in this moment, time of the day, day of the month, month of the year. The Sun and its assistants - reflections, shadows, every type of visible light you can imagine.
Or can it be detail that does the photo? Is it the clarity of the photo, a quality of it? Would the following look worse without the glasses in his hand or better without the people at background, not even mentioning the nice bicycle itself? Go get it. There are billions of photos in the world, and you can always ask more.
There's always the thrill you will be noticed and the one you are taking a photograph of, would not like it. OR, you are not noticed at all, and you get something really natural, as the life actually is, without any posing..
So nice to meet fellow photographers time by time. How do they think? How do they work? What do they shoot? Could I see some pictures? So many questions, when you see someone with a camera.
I often feel I'd like to share the moments with the ones seen at the photographs. Did it this time as well and I really hope she will be contacting me and I can send her the picture.
You know what is really exciting? You never know the answer if you say you'd like to share the picture. This time, the instant reply was "is it for for free?.." "Of course it is" I said.. "Well I guess I would not do it for free.." was the answer this time, reminding me a very similar conversation six years ago in the exhibition of cats and dogs, when I was asking for a permission for to take a photo of someone's pet. Well, this is how it goes, sometimes.
Human face, what a marvelous expression of what we all are. Age, childhood, present, future, emotions, feelings, mood - enriched with the mixture of the moment - the light around us, the environment, the people passing by..
As a final word, I'd like to quote someone (I'm sorry I don't remember who it was..), which was something as follows - humans fear time, time fears photography.
So now I know - we can fight some of the time with sometimes looking around us through the viewfinder :-)
