Street Photography Hunting
My shoeshine man on 2nd Avenue.
I like analogies. In street photography circles, a popular analogy is that we get our photos in one of two ways. We are either hunters or fishers. Of course, I am both. When have I ever settled into one consistent path?
This week’s blog is about what it means to be a street photography hunter. When you are hunting, you are on the move. Maybe you shoot a little; that is, you shoot selectively like in the old film camera days. Or maybe you shoot a lot, like you are packing a 128-gig memory card. On my Saturday forays into Nashville, I am moving and shooting a lot. In part, this is because I am practicing a new technique for me. I am learning to use zone focusing. I set my zoom lens to a 28mm focal length. I manually focus at about 6 feet. The shutter speed is 1/250 of a second or faster. The aperture is f/8-f/13. The ISO ranges up to 3200. I hold my camera at chest height and snap away as people approach me. The goal is to get their whole bodies in the frame. I have mixed results. I can only hope this is not another one of those 10,000 hours to expertise deals.
There are a number of hunting strategies. I use them all.
Shoot while walking. Walking and shooting is what I describe above. If I am shooting straight on, 1/250 second is fast enough. If I have to angle my camera to the right or left, the shutter speed has to be faster.
I think this guy is on to me. I have taken a couple of Walking and Shooting shots of him.
Stalk. I have been stalking a long time. Apparently, it is one of those 10,000 hours to excellence deals. I have never, ever gotten anything but a shot of the back of the person I was stalking.
Camouflage. This is new technique for me. I took to it like a duck takes to water. I hid with this fellow who was visiting Nashville to scare people. He was such a nice guy.
Talk. This is also new to me. The Nashville street photography scene is about five blocks long. If you go there every week, you get to know the other regulars. I am happy to report my 2nd Avenue shoe shine man that I so worried about after the explosion has set up shop on Broadway. I am also pleased to report that our “cat lives matter” fellow entrusted me with the care of his cats. He went to the Dollar Store to buy canned cat food with newly donated money. His cats did not behave for me like they behave for him.
My shoeshine friend in his new spot. I have never seen him with a customer. I used to always see him working on 2nd Avenue.
Eye contact. This is also new. If you make eye contact with someone, they cannot see that you are taking their picture.
Photo by Barry Hill. Used with permission. You can see Barry’s photos on his Facebook gallery, Barry Hill and his Instagram gallery at @barryjhill98. I call this ‘The Hunter and the Hunted'‘. This fellow is also a street photographer.
What can go wrong for the hunters? Sometimes people can take hunting the wrong way. In the photo below I managed to get an explicit gesture and the “Really?” stare. The other day in Nashville, a young, shall we say, tough guy was clearly unhappy with my failed attempt to get a picture. There was some physical contact. He gave me a gentle cuff along with an irritated monologue. Honestly, when I took the picture, I should have put my camera to my eye and been bold. I suspect being sneaky is what irritated him. It works just about as well, maybe even better in this case.
Hunting can tucker me out after a while. Then I move onto fishing. I will take that up next week.
There is a new gallery, It Is a Man’s World. If you have a minute, please visit it.