A Brief Pivot to Street Photography
From time to time, we may find ourselves meandering down a pathway and wondering how and why we took that direction. Usually it’s a brief foray into the unknown and we retreat quickly and resume our intended journey. Street photography has been such a pathway for me over the past fortnight. What started as a one off attempt to capture an acceptable image for a street photography competition at Greystones Camera Club has kept me intrigued beyond the competition date.
I regularly take a lunchtime stroll through Dublin city centre to stretch my legs. Sometimes I venture southside around and through Trinity College but more often I venture up Talbot Street and back by the quays. I find the north side of the city has more photographic potential – there is a dynamic that may be best explained as a paradox of communities struggling with and celebrating life – not always in equal measure.
As with wildlife photography, street photography requires a discrete approach to your subject matter – the human species! Although people are unsurprised at the presence of a photographer, a candid image of the species behaving normally is the objective! So the use of a large DSLR/Mirrorless camera with a protruding zoom or prime lens launched into the face of an unsuspecting shopper was off the table from the get go. The use of a longer lens is feasible but a mid zoom or wide-angled lens (24mm to 50mm) provides an intimacy with the subject. This aside from the obvious safety considerations of carrying a larger camera in the midst of Talbot Street and it’s environs.
I have an older Sony RX100V previously used for vlogging. It fits neatly in the palm of my hand, has 20.1MP 1″ stacked CMOS sensor, a focal range of 24-70mm with F1. 8 at the short end, a flippy EVF, a pop up viewfinder and also comes with a built in ND filter. This was selected as the tool for the task.
Over 3-4 lunchtime trips my confidence grew and I found myself observing city life rather than walking head down or zoned out. I’ve enjoyed the experience immensely. The brief life moments the camera captures reminds me of how much photographic opportunities I’ve missed during my commuting years.
The techniques employed are quite simple a) sitting on a step or leaning against a lamp post, compose an image and wait for an interesting person to enter the frame b) I’ll call this one – tying my shoelaces – in the middle of a busy street kneel down, place the camera on the ground angled up and wait and c) photograph whilst walking – camera at stomach level and using the flippy screen to compose. The last technique was the least fruitful.
The image quality of the Sony RX100 is good but not comparable to the latest cameras on the market and this took me down the YouTube rabbit hole where I familiarised myself with the best of the small discreet cameras used by street photographers. The Fuji X100V and VI, the Ricoh GR III and the drool inducing Leica Q3. I’m still waking up in the middle of the night dreaming of having the Leica!
The images above were taken during the lunchtime forays close to the office or at Tara Street train station on the way home.
Post processing the RX100V images proved challenging when compared to the extensive flexibility of pushing the highlights and shadows of a 45MP file from the Z8. Nonetheless for most lighting scenarios, the Sony point and shoot performs well even in week overcast light. However, I’d hesitate taking indoor shots. Detail does breaks down when viewing faces in wider group shots. The question of colour or black and white rarely arises in Nature Photography . But due to the history and our perception of street photography, I found myself asking this question for each image and there is a good mix in the carousel of images above. My black and white image processing was quite flat – either poor image selection or poor processing. I did experiment with gradient maps coupled with Hue/Saturation layers with limited success. More practice, more experience and experimentation will undoubtedly yield images that I’m happy with.
It’s Easter Sunday morning as I type this blog. Life in the natural world is about to fill the senses as early summer begins. I expect nature photography leaning towards macro will fill what spare time I have this summer. But there’s no reason to stop my lunchtime forays into the city to continue my new found interest with street. And as the light levels increase, I’d expect the results and possibly my technique using the Sony RX100V may also improve.
Until next time……
