I didn't realise how much time has passed since I last updated the blog and the site in general.
I've made quite a few moves, job changes (the pandemic I think disrupted everyone's plans), lifestyle changes, photo material changes, new socials (started and left there a bit to gather dust due to the lack of results, a bit because life, unless you're a 24/7 content creator anyway, leads you to have to choose between resting or continuing to squeeze energy).
Anyway, here I am again.
We left off with a little post introducing my photography project and my first self-published fanzine.
I want to resume with some news: after a total apathy that led me to stop all photographic activity, I have concentrated a little more on analogue photography over the last two years and, in the absence of models, I have tried to master the delicate form of street photography a little more.
There are many ways of approaching this genre, none is correct and all are correct at the same time if they help to achieve the goal: to tell the everyday life of a place with a photo. There is the aggressive and direct style of Gilden, the reserved and shy style of Bresson and so on.
The style is also reflected in the lenses used (with a larger or smaller field of view, depending on whether you want to "be part of the crowd" or keep relatively far away and focus on single subjects), the editing style of the photos, the choice of shooting in colour or black and white, analogue or digital, the choice of cropping or not...
At the moment I find myself living in Bedfordshire, it's not as 'exciting' as living in London, but I needed to slow down if you add to that the fact that I have a new job, a five-minute walk from home, it becomes much more relaxing.
Doing street in a small town is quite a challenge:
1. It is easier to be noticed by the subject,
2. Generally life is less hectic if on the one hand the authenticity of the place, the real England, is that of small towns and villages, on the other hand, nothing "interesting" happens
3. There is a greater mistrust of those who are new: in a place like London, there are thousands of new people every day, and many tourists have a camera always around their necks, passing as tourists, while shooting, pretending to keep in focus while taking a series of pictures of the subject that has caught your eye, is much easier, compared to a smaller town, out of the tourist flow.
However, it is a nice challenge: it helps to find those aspects neglected by many.
But now to me: how am I facing this challenge?
I must admit that I sometimes envy Bruce Gilden (famous street photographer) for his 'aggressive' approach. I could never do it. I don't like to dominate the street or photograph people "straight in the face" with a wide-angle lens and a flash.
I am approaching the challenge in this way:
1) I never photograph if I feel uncomfortable myself first, even if maybe the person is distracted, or focused on something else: if they are too close I feel uncomfortable myself first, so I simply tend to focus on something else, maybe some detail of the street and square where I am;
2) I use my favourite lens, lately I've been shooting with the Fujifilm XH-1 and Fujifilm XF 35mm F2 combination I'm not afraid to crop while editing the photo if maybe I'm too far away from the subject, and the optical quality is fantastic, at least for the shots I like to take. The lens' field of view (focal length, it's called in photographic jargon) is identical to that of a 50mm when shooting Full Frame (it gets this name because the Full Frame sensor is identical in size to the photographic film sensor we all know);
3) I use the tilting screen to get particular angles or to pretend I am concentrating on reviewing some photo, when in fact I am framing the subject better and composing the photo to take the shot.
Do I get perfect results in every photo?
Of course not.
Is every photo a keeper?
Of course not.
But those minutes when I have the camera in my hands and shoot, improve my day, even my normal 9 to 5.30 job becomes more enjoyable.
You will not always have interesting photos or photos that tell a story or a particular mood.
There won't always be interesting subjects or subjects on the street.
In such cases what to do?
Well: one of the basics of photography is that once you have 'learned the rules' you can safely ignore them and violate them, there is no photo police. What we call 'street photography' is nothing but the documentation, through photos, of what happens in a certain place, at a certain time. If nothing happens in a place ... you relax and enjoy the day, or you take pictures of some details of the place that help to improve the photographic story in the following days, if there has been a snowfall and no one is around, pictures of snowy branches, footprints in the snow (or the pristine snow) will help to tell the story of what happens next, someone will use a nice colourful scarf that will create a beautiful contrast, someone else will pack to go somewhere warmer, someone else will ... simply go to work.
It depends on us and on what our eyes catch and want to say
I hope there will be some requests for some photo sessions, in the meantime, I will continue with some street photography, to keep my eye trained.