Sunday School: Streetwise

A while back, Irene shared an excellent post on street photography, one of my favorite genres.  With the weather warming up, I've been itching to take my camera to the streets more often, and that got me thinking about what I actually do to get my best shots when I'm shooting around town.  I don't consider myself a formulaic or methodical shooter, but I've come up with some tips that may be helpful if you've never tried this type of photography or are looking for suggestions on taking street shots.

1) Go sloooooow. There is a treasure trove of images on just about every street in every town and city, but you may have to go really slow to see them. And sometimes by slow, I mean literally standing still. Occasionally, I just stop in one place and stare and wait for the image to appear before me. You can laugh at me if you like, but I swear that places have stories to tell, and if you stay put in one spot long enough, that location you happen to be standing in may trust you just enough to reveal a few tidbits in the form of images.

2) I personally prefer to shoot on a cloudy day or during the first couple hours of morning or the last couple hours before the sun sets. It really makes a difference to not have to deal with harsh mid-day sun.  In fact, I prefer shooting with ambient street lights to shooting in bright sun.

3) Look at things that aren't at eye level. Look up, look down, squat, get up high, whatever it takes to give you a perspective that you normally wouldn't get.  Merely bringing your camera down to chest or waist level makes a big difference in the view sometimes. I often shoot street scenes from the ground or with the camera held against my tummy.  This type of "shooting from the hip" (shooting without looking through the viewfinder or at the LiveView LCD Screen) takes a bit of practice but is one of the most useful skills to hone.

4) Try to find curious juxtapositions of images.  For example, something really goofy next to something really austere, or something that just looks totally out of place.  You very well may get some interesting photos that way.

5) Peoplewatch. When I see someone or a group of people that I want to photograph, I often keep my eye pressed against my viewfinder with my camera aimed at them.  I like to wait for a bit, make sure I have the image framed the way I want, and when the moment seems right, I click. Either that or I shoot from the hip. You can also ask permission to take a picture first, but then you may have to wait a long time for the subject to forget you're there and start acting more naturally.  I prefer to shoot when people are not camera aware, but that is a personal perference.

6) Peek inside windows of storefronts. I use a lenshood so that I can literally put my lens against the pane of glass and shoot. You can get some interesting shots that include the interior of what's behind the window but also what's reflected from the outside.

7) Search for images that evoke an emotion or memory. I think the one word that describes how I shoot is NOSTALGIC. When I capture an image, it's often because what I see reminds me of a specific memory or stirs something in me. Those are the images I know I'll treasure for years to come.

These are just a few suggestions that may or may not work for you since shooting styles are pretty personal.  Do you have any tips you'd like to share on taking streetwise photos?  Please don't hold back, and show us some of your favorite street shots.  And as always, you can look through our Fllickr pool for plenty of inspiration.

when art begets art

Colville paintings fit comfortably with fiction because they often hint at an imagined world of relationships and a subliminal level of emotions. His symbols register as fragments of stories that are never entirely told, rather the way Paul Simon writes lyrics as fragments of narrative.

What Colville shows is engaging, but he hints that something even more gripping is happening offstage, not that he would be so literal as to show it. ... He quotes with evident pleasure a French critic who remarked that in Colville there is always something terrible happening, over the horizon, just out of sight.

(The National Post, October 31, 2000)

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Ever taken a photo and watched as it took on some unspeakable, barely-there hint of something else? Has bokeh felt like impressionism? Has visual staccato or abstract line or repetitive pattern or blocks of colour in your photos reminded you of modern art?

Today, share with us a photo that -- intentionally or unintentionally -- feels like art. Feel free to get specific, as to a particular period or artist (a painter, another photographer, any medium) or simply share with us something that feels artful to you.

Gathering Bokeh

A few months back Sarah-Ji shed some light on the meaning of the background and technique of bokeh. Back then, I was infatuated with the idea and the look of ‘beautiful bokeh’ and loved that it would just magically appear in a photograph I captured now and again. It was always a nice surprise to be met with lovely soft spheres in the background of my image, sometimes solitary, sometimes in a chorus or sometimes coming from a mix of light and water in mystifying sunspot like shapes. I am partial to and speaking of the lovely little ‘balls’ of bokeh (as opposed to the smooth and silky, non circular kind) just to clarify for this post.

If you have been reading this blog since it’s incarnation, you probably know by now that I am smitten by surprises like these and love to stumble upon beauty by happenstance. In other words, I subscribe to the notion of photographic magic and happy accidents and I am pretty content living and shooting in that state of mind when I can get away with it. However, my appreciation and admiration of Bokeh slowly grew into a kind of obsession. A healthy obsession, but an obsession none the less. I quickly became what one might consider a bokeh stalker. I began to notice when it was showing up in my photos and paying more attention to what I was doing at the time of the capture in hopes to better understand it and to be able to eventually, consistently recreate it. If certain photographic details don’t pique my curiosity enough to want to try to crack the code on them, I just enjoy them when they do decide to show up. You know, that magic thing again—kinda like the whole thing is out of my control. In the case of pretty, petite-planetary bokeh, I felt driven to figure out how to find it and how to gather it up in my images. I liken it to learning to catch fireflies in a jar which, by the way my girls and I learned to do for the first time over the summer. So fun!

As I began to recognize what time of day the natural light bokeh was most likely to be bountiful and easy to access (in the early morning and late afternoon light) and how the light could become dappled enough to create the celestial circles (filtered through bushes or tree leaves) I began to then play with it’s size. The aperture you are set at, will affect the circumference of the circles (i.e. the size of the opening of the aperture will either bring that light into focus or will throw that light out of focus. The more out of focus the light speckles are, the larger your bokeh circle. So, I got that down but it still wasn’t enough. I had to take it a step further. See what I mean about obsession?

I had to find a way to collect the light in such a way that I could place the circles right where I wanted them. Imagine being able to find the bokeh when you want it and then actually control where the shapes end up? Oh I know, it seems all too calculated for a self-proclaimed intuition photographer like myself but the results are intoxicating and the experimentation is addicting.

Finding the filtered light and shooting at the aperture that gives me the results I desire is not the part that is compelling for me. That stuff is just a trial and error; a practice makes much closer to perfect thing. It’s in the careful placement of the shapes that my truest artist comes out to play.

As we learn to fine tune the way we see our subjects, pay attention to the background of our shots, fill in the negative space with glittering, sparkling, dancing light, we begin to actually write the poetry of own photographic work. As if almost beckoning us, bokeh is happy to oblige, and allows us to surely and steadily harness it’s magic.

What images can you share that unveil the mysteries of bokeh? Any tips or tricks to your process? Is it a science to you or more the coincidence of the click? Beauty is beauty no matter how we capture it. I cannot wait to see what you and your bokeh have created together.

home away from home

The other day I had the privilege of working with the fabulous Romi Lassally of True Mom Confessions fame. A handful of moms (myself included) were there participating in a project she’s working on in conjunction with the release of her book and her new website—go Romi—but beyond that I had my camera by my side capturing the ins and outs of the day.

I have become a seasoned story teller of my own everyday life but stepping out of mine and into someone else’s life was enlightening. A couch found friends chatting amongst themselves, yet these friends were new faces to me. A fruit bowl on the dining room table filled with oranges, not apples. A chalk board for family memos, instead of the bulletin board I use everyday. Although it was all new and different it was so familiar and everything around me felt worthy to photograph.

As a portrait photographer I have been invited into people homes on a great many occasions. Arriving at a scheduled time I am met by families who have been harried and hurried to get prepared for my visit; everyone dressed and ready for ‘the portrait”. It is after all, the reason for my visit. And so we get right to it and spend our time together making that happen. Rarely do I get the chance to notice the fruit bowl.

I felt a sacredness being in a home as merely an observer; an outsider looking in. Watching and noticing all the details that make a home and being given the opportunity to capture what I saw through my lens. It was an honor to be there.

What details of your home beg to be seen? What are you compelled to capture under your own roof? Or perhaps there is a view or vignette of someone else’s home you covet? You are encouraged to share images from your own home discoveries.

life in squares

This portrait of my sister and her fiancé is the first of only two shots I took of them that chilly day by the sea; I took a second shot because I had a moment of doubt: perhaps I should take another, just in case. As it turned out, I was right on the money with the first and this is now my favourite photograph from last year.

I only shot two photographs because I was using my Hasselblad 500C/M, a vintage medium-format camera that takes 120 film - when you only have 12 shots, you don’t want to waste a single one. Shooting with film again has transformed my eye. In the early 90s I studied photography at art school; back then we only had analogue cameras, and once a week I’d borrow a Hasselblad from the college technicians, reverently shooting with the same format David Bailey and Diane Arbus used. It was love at first click.

Last year I bought the camera I’d waited over fifteen years to own. Shooting with the Hasselblad is like a meditation; it definitely makes me a more thoughtful photographer. I’m intimately involved in my picture-taking, measuring the light, adjusting the aperture ring, setting the speed and focusing the lens, all the while absorbing the moment. And only when it feels right, when I have everything in the viewfinder as I want it, do I hold my breath and press the shutter. Often I’ll walk away from a potential shot if I don’t feel it is good enough; even with three rolls of film I only have 36 shots, so each one is precious.

The Hassy sits weightily in my hands, a solid chunk of glass and metal that seems to ground me even more squarely in the moment. Perhaps I love this camera because it connects me to my past, to the 20-year-old girl who first stepped into a studio filled with soft boxes and infinity coves. I know I love it for the magic it lends my images, the starry bokeh and cut-glass sharpness.

Of course, like most of the vintage things in my home, it’s old-school photography with a modern twist, as I scan all my negatives and gently hone them in Photoshop. As much as I would love a darkroom in my basement, the convenience of the digital darkroom has won me over. (It also helps that I have a photo lab ten minutes from my house that offers one-hour film processing!)

It’s still possible to buy 120 film and I like that my original images exist tangibly as negatives, rather than digital data in a metal box. But that doesn’t mean I’m a film snob. If shooting medium-format film is a zen walk through the park, picking up a digital SLR again is, for me at least, like going to a nightclub, full of freedom and energy.

So tell me, do you shoot with a film camera? Does the idea excite you or maybe scare you a little?

If you’re keen to try medium-format photography, look out for a Yashica Mat-124G camera on eBay, an affordable twin-lens camera that’ll familiarise you with shooting 120 film. That old Duaflex you use for TtV? Try putting a roll of film through it and see what results you get. And you’ll never regret buying a Holga, I promise. If you haven’t got a film camera you can use, experiment by limiting the number of photos you take next time you’re out shooting. If you only had twelve shots, what would you photograph?

Today's post is brought to you courtesy of guest Shutter Sister Susannah Conway.  You can read/see more of her amazingly beautiful work at her blog, Ink on my Fingers, and purchase some of her beautiful fine art prints at her etsy store.