Street Shots

I just cannot stop getting new cameras! Those who are closer to my family know that at least once every 6 months, I changed camera. Started with Sony Nex3, Micro 4/3 Olympus EPL1, latest was Ricoh GXR which can mount my trusty old leica M-lens. 

After all these years, I can still pick up any camera, with a little of practice, I could get some nice (not great) pictures. Why, because taking picture is about composition, color, lighting, shutter speed and exposure. Every camera can offer shutter speed and exposure, however, it is not so easy to get the composition and color right. With composition, I recently try to shoot something out of the rules by placing the subject in the middle, like the shadow of a tree behind a chair in my last blog, since the subject was about shadow, I think I managed to get away with center composition. Well, most of the time, please stick with the 1/3 rule, at least you can get pleasing pictures.

What to do with just a camera body with with no len. I spotted a 50 years old (manufactured in 1960's) Canon 50mm len for the leica screw mount which is quite clean and reasonable priced. The len has a yellowish coating which some friends told me that this is because the glass has radioactive element to increase the reflection index and bend the light better. Needless to say, I mounted the len and went shooting on the street.

This is an apparently boring picture of a dump collection point on sunday in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Many people walked by without even looking at the lady at work. After I snapped the picture, or at the moment of snapping the picture she spotted me. The interesting part, and indeed the most interesting part of this picture are the eyes of the lady with a red hair band. I cropped the picture to focus on the person.

What can I say, the eye contact created a big impact of this picture. So please, and I plead again, please do not go out and shoot the back, or body part of some person on the street, if you want to be successful in street photography, shoot when the eyes are wide open, otherwise, we might as well put away our camera and keep walking.

This is nothing more than a block of compressed aluminum cans, thousand of them. By the way, each can of soft drink has about 60 grams of sugar, try to weight 60 gram of sugar and you know how shocking I feel when drinking a can of coke. This block of cans, probably has a ton if sugar. Stay away, or reduce. 

So far, the color of the 50 year's old len seems pleasing. I tried to push the limit a bit. If you have a chance to look at the picture in full size, (the posted is only 75% of original), you can see details of the leaves, the flowers. At the same time, I realized that the color matches with the actual subject. Leicas' beware, a hidden jewel has been found. I actually don't mind to advertise this len a bit, because, when you go out and rush bidding of all the old Canon ltm lens, this could indirectly improve the value of my collection. 

Please look at this picture more closely, do not just skip because there is no eye contact. I like this picture despite it is just a snap shot on the street. The leaves in the foreground is as sharp as we desire, we can even examine the veins in the leaves. The color in the foreground was slightly saturated, but look at the bokeh (!). It is totally smooth, with not halo highlight, not harsh lines in the background. I think this need a very well corrected len, with this I believe my canon lens collection has started. 

Shooting for Shadow and backlighting

Last week in Singapore, as usual, I went with my usual friend to shoot rock and wood. Nothing special, a lazy saturday afternoon. After a cup of coffee and some bargain shopping, we walked along the Singapore "River". (In fact, this is not a river because the water is salty, which failed the first test of a river. Any body ever come across a salty river please let me know.

A standard shot of Singapore River: bridge, high rise office buildings, cruise boat, and tourists. Suitable for Singapore Tourism Board's poster. I exposed for the buildings and the sky and use software to open up the shadow to avoid over exposure. Nothing fancy, nothing surprising. I feel I should go free-lance to make a few dollars for my camera bodies.

When I turn my camera to follow the cruise, the sun was directly into the len, building an interesting composition with the tree in centre, the composite works in this here. Please don't try yourself.

I started to notice the shadow of the rail, and kept searching for a good shadow shot.

From almost the same spot, just turn a bit to the right, the shadow of the tree, the rail was there. I could not trim the picture any further because I need to keep the leaves of the tree even though it was only a hint of the leaves.

Nice shadows, but not to forget to maintain some details in the shadow to give a overall low key feel. Remember I posted many blogs ago that when the sky is plain blue, plain grey or plain white, using some branches, trees to cover the sky a bit to avoid starring at a blank piece of uniform grey, blue or white. This is one of my favorite picture of the day. The tone of the picture is great. Take a look at the shadow, which has a lot of details, then look at the highlight, the details are also there. This is what we generally call a picture with good tonality even though in this case, the tone is considered low-key.

On the full size file, I can see even more detail, I am really considering selling the L brand 21mm and keep this much cheaper and as good Z brand. Right, this is not about camera, ok!

Another shot which is almost the same shot, but with a very low angle, now the shadow is even more prominent due to the setting sun. The subject is now pronounced "the shadow." This is another favorite picture which represents the title subject as best as I could. Remember to keep both highlight and shadow within the limit of the camera, either slightly too dark or too bright will ruin the picture.

Finally, a classic composition with the people subject on the left one-third, then the tunnel shadow on the right one-third, a balance picture, but no excitement at all.

I have not been posting so regularly because on the technical side, I have done with what I have to say; due to traveling, I was not able to take picture so frequently but I will continue with my effort. At least I will have a camera close to me at any time. My latest camera is a Samsung Galaxy SII.

New York (2)

This is the group from all over the world - Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Miami, Sao Paulo, Geneva, London - not in order of importance. The picture was taken by a simple phone. However, this picture demonstrated such energy from everybody, the spontaneity, the body language - put this picture top of my list of group photos. The ladies in particular are dynamic.

A boring shot of the New York Harbour. I have seen this many times in magazine, in movies. When I was in front of it, the feeling of being there was so strong I just have to take this shot.

New York Harbour, exposure was good, the fire service ship added colour and some energy yet something has been missing.

Downtown view from the Empire State Building, took 30 minutes to wait for three different levels of lifts, but the view is worth it. I deliberately climbed the Empire State Building in late afternoon so that I could capture some interesting light. The lighting could be better, but when you go sight seeing, there is so much you can control, just go with the flow and make it memorable. I can remember this picture for a long time. Still - something is missing.

The same evening, I must go to a place which I wanted to be at for 10 years. Missed the turn and ended up at Wall Street. The light is green, but the stopping hand was a very special reflection of how the financial market behaves.

 

Finally, I reach the spot which is worth the whole trip. The memorial wall is on the side a a fire station which is next to World Trade Center. Obviously, they were the first to be called, the first to be there , and most likely the first to sacrifice. The picture with the image of the fireman pointing forward, leading to a living person paying tribute to the deceased made me running in tears. 

The sight seeing trip has come to the end. After the the training, I spent a few hours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was totally stunning by the wealth of the collections. As far as I can recall, no where in the world has such collection. That was another story to be told some time. If time allows. 

Adios!