Street photography with a 400mm f2.8?

[pcgpcg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8FpnM0NlXk

[Iluvmycam]

Russ,

Thanks for these interesting links. I guess that the 2 images below would probably fit your definition better?





Captured with the same equipment.

Now, I genuinely wonder if we can limit a category to the type of images that major photographers active in that domain such as HCB (that I am very familiar with) produced.

I think that we would all agree that landscape isn't limited to the type of images that Hansel Adams produced and that limited DoF colour images showing details of a scene also fall within "landscape", right?

What is the value of enforcing a more strict categorisation for "street photography"?

Cheers,
Bernard

Street photos are whatever you say them to be. These ones you posted are better than your previous ones. The people in the OP cannot hardly be seen. but you don't need people in all street shots.

This is in a zoo, but I consider it street.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_Bear_Copyright_2012_Daniel_Teoli_Jr_mr.jpg


OK, this one not exactly on the street, but it comes under street work as doc photography. Exact same skills required to get the shot whether asphalt, dirt road or whatever.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GOTJ_Mosh_Pit_9_copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg

[RSL]

Russ,

I am aware that most people do street with unobtrusive cameras with widish lenses. But considering that you don't seem to think that an interaction with the subject is needed, I would think that a long enough lens completely removing the photographer from the scene is an interesting option, isn't it? It is of courde impossible to stay un-noticed with such equipment, but it's possible to stay un-noticed from the subject, which is all that matters I would think?

I am also not sure that photographers such as HCB wouldn't have considered this since we now have incredible cameras and lenses making this possible. It was simply not even possible 5 years ago and I like to explore new(ish) avenues.

The look resulting from limited DoF may be interesting too. I love the bokeh generated by this lens accross the field of the image, with fully circular OoF highlights till the border of the image (something you cannot get with shorter tele lenses), the very limited light fall off wide open and the near perfect correction of all chromatic aberrations.

I'll for sure continue to see where this leads me.

Cheers,
Bernard

In Europe HCB almost always used a 50mm. The main reason, I think, is that 50 gives you the closest thing to the perspective of normal vision, and consequently the kind of geometry he was looking for. In the USA he frequently switched to a 35. I'm not sure why. A long lens sounds logical, but I think if you try a shorter lens you'll find that being in the heart of the scene you're working gives you a lot more options and also gives you a better understanding of what's going on. Here's an example. I was practically in the midst of these kids with a 50mm, and by being there I managed to catch the girl looking directly at the tall kid. From a distance I'd have been unlikely to distinguish that, and what I shot would have been compressed -- squeezed down so that the whole scene would have been flat. I had a 50mm f/1.4 on the D3, which isn't what I usually use on the street, but at night the size of the body doesn't matter much and f/1.4 and ISO up to 6400 helps. Yes, a normal lens keeps you from being unnoticed, but you need to learn to do what The Shadow did: cloud men's minds. In other words, you need to learn to be unobtrusive -- just another non-threatening guy in the crowd.

Oh, and backing up a bit, when you say that I don't think an interaction with the subject is needed I assume you're talking about posing. The only guy I know of who did really successful street with posed subjects was Robert Doisneau, though Brassaï's whorehouse pictures called for his subjects to hold still since he was working with awfully slow materials. Some people think posing subjects for street is cheating. HCB probably was one of them. I don't do it, but looking at Doisneau's stuff I can't condemn it.

If you continue with street I think you'll soon love it. Nothing else is like it. Unlike landscape it's never boring, and sometimes it's exciting as hell -- sometimes almost too exciting.

[Isaac]

… a long enough lens completely removing the photographer from the scene …

Indeed.

"… what I really wanted was the people walking down the street lost in thought. They had an entirely different kind of expression. And the way I could do this was to use the telephoto lens, walk myself and photograph them by setting the camera at four feet with a long lens. When their heads filled up the viewfinder, I snapped the picture."

Harry Callahan quoted in Unfamiliar Streets.

With a 400mm f2.8 wouldn't it be better to use a tripod, like diCorcia ;-)

"To make these photographs, diCorcia embraced a cinematic approach, setting up a complex system of synchronized flashes, hung on lampposts and street signs, and using a prefocused telephoto lens that he activated when someone walked over a designated mark. He then positioned himself so that he could survey the scene without being immediately detected.
…
DiCorcia’s street photography became even more intense — and empathetic — in Heads, a group of seventeen close-ups of pedestrians made in New York in 2001. The product of a year spent observing people in Times Square through a telephoto lens… The radiant look of their unguarded faces framed against darkened backgrounds — a byproduct of the intense flash and the camera’s shallow depth of field — clashes with their casual demeanor."

pdf "I Spy: Photography and the Theater of the Street, 1938-2010" page 20

[BernardLanguillier]

Isaac,

Thanks. Very interesting approach.

I would probably focus on something a bit less formal... by adding a monopod under the 400mm f2.8 as soon as I find a suitable plate to mount it on my RRS monopod.

Cheers,
Bernard

[stamper]

I am currently reading this tome.

http://www.thamesandhudson.com/The_World_Atlas_of_Street_Photography/9780500544365

 Newly published and so far a great read. The definition of street is widely ranging and I think Bernard's images would be considered street by the author.

I have just seen this link.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/24/street-art-photographers-_n_5863628.html

One or more of the images show the insides of buildings looking from the street.

[William Walker]

Nice pix, Bernard, but I prefer your (peaceful) mountain scenes.

Cheers,
Eric

Bernard, I am pleased to see you were not on the "wrong" mountain this weekend. Terrible.
William

[BernardLanguillier]

Bernard, I am pleased to see you were not on the "wrong" mountain this weekend. Terrible.
William

So I am, terrible indeed! 

I sometimes have a bit of a hard time feeling sorry for extreme climbers making  a bad fall because they like the risk they are taking, but here these 45+ hikers had absolutely no clue they were in a super dangerous place. I was there 4 years ago and had no idea the volcano had even remote odds to wake up that suddenly without any early warning signs.

Cheers,
Bernard

[RSL]

I am currently reading this tome.

http://www.thamesandhudson.com/The_World_Atlas_of_Street_Photography/9780500544365

 Newly published and so far a great read. The definition of street is widely ranging and I think Bernard's images would be considered street by the author.

Stamper, go to Amazon and check my review of this book. You're right, according to these guys a picture of a street is street photography. In fact, they think a picture of a body of water is street photography.

[Isaac]

Stamper, go to Amazon and check my review of this book.

Now I understand:

The more you restrict, the more power goes to the preachers who then determine what belongs and what not, who are the faithfuls and who are the infidels

[RSL]

Yeah, Isaac. That's it. There's no more landscape. It's all street photography.

[RSL]

?

The more you restrict, the more power goes to the preachers who then determine what belongs and what not, who are the faithfuls and who are the infidels.

[RSL]

Come on, Isaac. If that's not obvious on the face of it you need to go run some water on your head.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I think Russ is reading my statement to mean "anything goes" when it comes to genres, i.e., in absence of stricter rules and definitions, delineations between genres disappear and all genres blend into each other.

... they think a picture of a body of water is street photography.

There's no more landscape. It's all street photography.

The last quote above is a tongue-in-chick, I assume.

However, my positions isn't "anything goes," or absence of any rules and definitions, but simply that more relaxed, broader rules are better. It doesn't preclude stricter definitions either, in which case they become a sub-genre, if one insists on them.

[RSL]

The last quote above is a tongue-in-chick, I assume.

Right, Slobodan, my chick is almost punctured.

On the other hand, if The World Atlas of Street Photography is correct, all photographs fall within the definition of street photography.

[muntanela]

In any case, there's always something to learn from Russ, even what is a real passion.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

In any case, there's always something to learn from Russ, even what is a real passion.

Very true.

[Isaac]

On the other hand, if The World Atlas of Street Photography is correct, all photographs fall within the definition of street photography.

Really? Is there some specific definition provided by that book?

I started a topic on The World Atlas of Street Photography so please answer there.

[RSL]

Isaac, you didn't hear me. Did you go and run some water on your head?