The Other Story in Street Photography - Nashville Reflection
Last Saturday was the second time I went into into Nashville to shoot street photography after six months of pandemic staying at home. Week one, last week, went better than I thought it would. At least most of my pictures were properly exposed. That is a start. I hoped that by gathering my forces maybe week 2 might be more successful than week 1, if only incrementally. Spoiler alert: that did not come to pass.
Here is what I know about myself. I end up with a lot of vertical 8x10 pictures. My Olympus format is not the 35mm format (2x3) of a Leica or even most DSLRs. When you are shooting 3x4, it is an easy to end up with an 8x10 format. I would like to change that.
Here is the mission. I want to shoot like many Leica street photographers, but I do not want to buy a Leica or any other camera. To do this, as a start, I treat my Olympus 24mm-40mm zoom lens (effective focal length) like a 28 mm fixed lens. I use a preset manual focus, which requires a bit of a workaround on the Olympus. I want as much of the image in focus as possible, because the goal is to have layers of interest. The aperture needs to stay at f/9 or greater. Meanwhile, this is street and people are moving, so the shutter speed cannot go below 1/200 second. Hello, high ISOs.
There is more to the mission. I am trying to go on the Craig Semetko DIET. Craig is a highly regarded street photographer from Los Angeles who recommends DIET as a way of improving street photography. When you DIET, you practice getting compositions with Design, Information, Emotion and Timing.
Nashville has one really busy street, Broadway. It is filled with brides to be and other revelers from greater Nashville and tourists from out of town. Broadway is only 4 or 5 blocks long and it is generally pretty chaotic, as reveling tends to be. It is not perfect for the mission of wide angle images that have interesting layers with separation, but it is the street fate has given to me. Tally ho.
I spent some time on Saturday trying to visualize what might create an opportunity for good Design on Broadway. Certainly there is lots of opportunity for bad design. On both sides of the street there are interesting honky tonks with signs that certainly provide Information, ie, context to the location. There are swarms of people on the sidewalks, who are often interesting by virtue of their clothing or their particular reveling, an Emotion opportunity. But in a crowded sidewalk, how do you separate the points of interest? Shooting with a 28 mm focal length practically guarantees that the street and cars will be in the scene. There is a Design reason some street photographers avoid having cars in a picture.
But enough of the theory, let’s get down to the picture and the day. I find taking pictures of reflections easy and comfortable, so I started with that. The Design of this picture is not the worst, although the real street scene on the right is not as interesting to me as the reflected scene, so I did not meet any goal there. There is a lot of information from signs and buildings that makes it clear at least what kind of place this is. I will give myself a little credit on timing. The guy walking down the street lines does give a point of focus. Zero Emotion. I was able to crop it to the 2x3 horizontal format. I will rejoice in small victories.
Here is what was interesting about the day. Not one, but two, handsome young men seemed to genuinely want to help me out. They both volunteered to be models. They both very much wanted to give me a hug. And the spirit was totally kindness, not mockery. It could easily have been mockery. Not that it was easy for me. I did take pictures, but I am the most anxious non-candid photographer, maybe in the world. And in times of Covid, I do not even hug my family members.
My first friend is the guy in the middle. I emailed him this snapshot. He seemed pleased that I offered.
The guy on the right is my second friend. I knew I was shooting into the sun. I did the mental calculus about posing them in the other direction and decided I was definitely not up to that! This is why I get real anxious when I am shooting non-candid photos. Please don’t judge me.
Next week I am going to take a mental shot list. I would like a bride with her wedding party. I would like some folks wearing Trump paraphernalia. I would like to get one of the horse and carriages in a picture so the street it interesting. I definitely want a picture of the ever present motorcycle groups. If you really study the reflection picture, you can see motorcycles in the street. That was a tiny surprise for me. And I am going to continue to DIET. Maybe next week will be incrementally better, but whether it is or isn’t, I am going to keep going back to Broadway until I “own” it. Next week is a new week and new opportunity.