Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: BernardLanguillier on September 29, 2014, 09:33:54 pm
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A bit heavy, but it can be done somehow. ;)
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2947/15205804990_af49dd7ab5_o.jpg)
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15369463056_cfccc742cc_o.jpg)
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2950/15205901598_9ac8612a91_o.jpg)
All images shot handheld at f2.8. D810 + 400mm f2.8 E FL.
A shooting philosophy not fully aligned with the latest compact mirror less trends... ;D
Cheers,
Bernard
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You use what personally pleases you though I now prefer a micro four thirds set up. Can you shoot from the hip with the Nikon or do you need a hip replacement in the future after carrying it about all day? ;) A nice set of images. :)
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You use what personally pleases you though I now prefer a micro four thirds set up. Can you shoot from the hip with the Nikon or do you need a hip replacement in the future after carrying it about all day? ;) A nice set of images. :)
Yep, you need hips and back replacements. Arms too probably.
That's the price to pay for good bokeh! ;)
Cheers,
Bernard
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Pleasant images, Bernard, but they're not street photography.
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I hope you like your D810 as much as I do mine. Every day, I discover something it can do the D800 couldn't. I read comps from reputable magazines every day as to it is only marginally better than the 800 but I find it to be far past those critiques a superior platform. Add a nice piece of glass and it becomes a formidable piece of gear. Not sure though I'd walk around the streets with a 2.8 400mm and not have a Sherpa with me.
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Pleasant images, Bernard, but they're not street photography.
They were shot in a street out in the city, that's good enough for me. ;)
Cheers,
Bernard
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I hope you like your D810 as much as I do mine. Every day, I discover something it can do the D800 couldn't. I read comps from reputable magazines every day as to it is only marginally better than the 800 but I find it to be far past those critiques a superior platform. Add a nice piece of glass and it becomes a formidable piece of gear. Not sure though I'd walk around the streets with a 2.8 400mm and not have a Sherpa with me.
Yep, the D810 is an unbelievably good photographic machine!
In fact the new 400mm f2.8 "only" weights 3.8 kg. With its excellent balance (it isn't front heavy), high inertia and brilliant VR, it is really hand holdable... for short amounts of time.
Cheers,
Bernard
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You use what personally pleases you though I now prefer a micro four thirds set up. Can you shoot from the hip with the Nikon or do you need a hip replacement in the future after carrying it about all day? ;) A nice set of images. :)
Op, nice photos. Esp the low noise street night shot. I only use superwides for my street work. A 50mm is like a super tele for me!
Stamper, that about sums me up to. Although I gave up 4/3 for most of my work and adopted Fuji X and Leica. The 4/3 does provide max stealth when needed and I will drag it out if I have to get the shot.* (I have 6 4/3's)
Here is an example of what Stamper eluded to...
http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/56422193364
You could never shoot this shot with your monster Nikon or any other dslr. Sure it is possible. But this was shot after shooting all day and night with the cam on my wrist. I focused on kids that day. In 2014 if your an old guy shooting stranger kids you are a pervert. No one ever knew a thing the way I shoot. it is all due to my technique, 46 years shooting and mirrorless cams.
Expand your horizons OP if you ever want to improve on the street work. Adopt mirrorless unless you want to keep hiding behind the tele blocks away.
nsfw
1 foot away
http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/87671152746
2 feet away
http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/90113821726
http://whoopwhoopartistsbook.tumblr.com/image/93154306926
3 feet away
http://familyicp.tumblr.com/image/93351476533
4 feet away
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Peephole_Bikers_Mardi_Gras_Copyright_2013_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr_MR3.jpg
6 feet away
http://familyicp.tumblr.com/image/94381154148
8 feet away
http://danielteolijrcurrent.tumblr.com/image/41324185281
...all mirrorless OP, all 100% candids. Go try this with your monster cam OP then report back to us how you do.
Always remember, mp only go so far OP. *Use the right tool for the shoot OP, don't let ego ruin the shot.
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Some very nice images!
Cheers,
Bernard
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Pleasant images, Bernard, but they're not street photography.
As soon as I saw these, I knew the Commissar of Street was going to jump in.
It's a good think you didn't "Crop," or you'd face a double conviction.
Nice pix, Bernard, but I prefer your (peaceful) mountain scenes.
Cheers,
Eric
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As soon as I saw these, I knew the Commissar of Street was going to jump in.
It's a good think you didn't "Crop," or you'd face a double conviction.
Nice pix, Bernard, but I prefer your (peaceful) mountain scenes.
Cheers,
Eric
#2 is peaceful enough for me and my favorite of these.
Bruce
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the Commissar of Street
Street photographs?
Photographer Osborne Yellott appears to have been the first person to deploy the term "street photography," as the title of an essay he wrote in 1900 … he then divided the genre into two strains of photographic meaning, delineating street photographs based on attention to the specifics of location from those rooted in the scene the photographer discovers there. For the first category, the "pictorial treatment of locality," he argued that "an intimate acquaintance with the locality is essential to success." For the second category, the "record of scene or incident which may possess sentiment or merely human interest," the specific location of a photograph bears little importance. … one in which urban context is key, the other stressing poetic or fortuitous happenstance.
… I will use the term "street photograph" to delineate Yellott's first category from the "street photography" of Yellott's second category, with which the genre has for too long been exclusively equated.
Unfamiliar Streets (http://books.google.com/books?id=dyk_AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA11&dq=unfamiliar%20streets&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=%22Photographer%20Osborne%20Yellott%22&f=false): The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca DiCorcia
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They were shot in a street out in the city, that's good enough for me. ;)
Right, Bernard, and since they were shot in a street out in the city you could call them impressionist paintings, and that might be good enough for you but it wouldn't make it true. If you're going to claim to work in a particular genre it might pay to learn something about the genre. I'd point you toward early Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank for starters -- two of the people who invented and defined street photography.
And Isaac, Yellott can "deploy" terms all he wants, but the genre we now call street photography wasn't born until after Oskar Barnak's Leica became available to people like Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson. For Kertesz that was 1928. For Cartier-Bresson it was 1931. Earlier equipment, not unlike the current 400mm f/2.8, was too bulky to use for street photography. Atget shot some people on the street with his view camera about the same time Yellott was "deploying," but the result isn't street photography. I more than suspect you already knew that.
An interesting sideline: The two articles I wrote on the subject that now reside on my main web as "essays": http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/OnStreetPhotography.html and http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhyDoStreetPhotography.html had been read by approximately thirty people a month for the past three years -- until day before yesterday. In a day and a night my web has been inundated by people from the UK reading those two articles: more than a hundred of them. The flood has slowed, but it's still going on. If anybody has any idea why that's happening, please clue me in.
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And Isaac, Yellott can "deploy" terms all he wants, but the genre we now call street photography…
The author of Unfamiliar Streets (http://books.google.com/books?id=dyk_AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA11&dq=unfamiliar%20streets&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=%22Photographer%20Osborne%20Yellott%22&f=false) used the term "street photograph" not "street photography" for Yellott's first category.
(Although she is as free to use the broader meaning as you are free to be narrow -- In my approach (http://books.google.com/books?id=dyk_AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA11&dq=unfamiliar%20streets&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q=%22In%20my%20approach%22&f=false), "street photography" should not be limited to those images taken in or of any street seeking the "scene or incident" of Yellott's second category.)
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The problem is that you can jaw it to death, but jawing can't define street photography any more than jawing can define impressionism. You can talk about it, but you can't really describe what makes it a unique genre. To understand impressionism you have to become familiar with impressionist paintings. To understand street photography you have to become familiar with the work of the people who defined the genre. Talking about it doesn't really define it.
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Russ,
Thanks for these interesting links. I guess that the 2 images below would probably fit your definition better?
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3892/15205735949_0c083b996c_o.jpg)
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2941/15205735129_5033099f25_o.jpg)
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
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... What is the value of enforcing a more strict categorisation for "street photography"?
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 ;)
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Okay, Slobodan. Let's call Jackson Pollock's work "Impressionism." If nobody knows or cares about the difference then you've confused the definition of the genre to the point of meaninglessness. What you're telling us is that there are -- or should be -- no genres in the art world. Everything is just stuff.
And Bernard, I'll agree that both of your B&W's are street. The first one isn't strong because the story is mundane and not the kind of thing that gives you a jolt. The second is a little better because it contains some ambiguity. Yes, you can do street, awkwardly, with a long lens. In the first B&W above there's nothing in the foreground that shows the linear perspective distortion the lens gives the scene, so you're home free. In the second case the long lens actually helps because of the distortion. The main problem on the street, though, is the fact that a long lens on a DSLR body draws too much attention. If you want to do serious street, as Stamper suggests, try a micro four thirds with either the equivalent of a 50mm or 35mm on it. You can move among 'em unobtrusively and, as HCB suggests, "approach tenderly, gently on tiptoe."
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To understand street photography you have to become familiar with the work of the people who defined the genre.
Choose different people and you'll have a different understanding of what the genre can be.
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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
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8FpnM0NlXk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8FpnM0NlXk)
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Russ,
Thanks for these interesting links. I guess that the 2 images below would probably fit your definition better?
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3892/15205735949_0c083b996c_o.jpg)
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2941/15205735129_5033099f25_o.jpg)
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
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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.
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… 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 (http://books.google.com/books?id=dyk_AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA11&dq=unfamiliar%20streets&pg=PA148#v=onepage&q=%22They%20had%20an%20entirely%20different%20kind%20of%20expression.%22&f=false).
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 (http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2012/ispy/ispy.pdf)" page 20
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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 ;)
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Yeah, Isaac. That's it. There's no more landscape. It's all street photography.
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?
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.
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Come on, Isaac. If that's not obvious on the face of it you need to go run some water on your head.
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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.
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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.
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In any case, there's always something to learn from Russ, even what is a real passion.
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In any case, there's always something to learn from Russ, even what is a real passion.
Very true.
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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 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=93961.0).
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Isaac, you didn't hear me. Did you go and run some water on your head?