Alone
I love street photography. It has the light, the textures,
the emotions that I delight to fill canvases with. So this deceive moment assignment
had me happily running around the city in search of moments. One such perfect
moment happened as light stretched off buildings across the wet pavement. I had
set up on the median in the middle of the street and framed out this shot so any subjects would be dark contrasts against the background. After
framing I lowered the camera to my chest and looked for people of interest and how
they would eventually walk across the corner. Then I waited, clicking off as various congregations
and individuals of interest walked across the stage. One such
individual, was a middle aged man huddled against the howling wind, plodding
along towards me. I took two shots of him as he passed, this being the
first. The resulting photo illuminated the perfect moment as three strangers
converged on a spot, yet seemingly remained in their own lonely worlds. All three stared off in different directions; yet stayed connected in this moment by the triangle between them, the rule of odds and the perspective driven
leading lines.
My normal way of working is to leave my ISO as low as
possible to get crisp images and to help contrast shadows from highlights. So here
the ISO was 100. Also to keep the depth of field as broad as possible I shoot
at f8 to f10. In this case f10 and then I need only focus once at around 30 feet and know that as I walk around everything from 5 feet to infinity will be remain sharp. Equally
important I keep my shutter speed at either 320 or 400. This is to compensate for
both my subjects walking or running and my own forward movements. a good example of this in the last
shot where I was walking briskly towards Chinatown with the subject moving towards me. In
the first photo above my shutter speed was 400.
After taking the first “Alone” photo I searched out spots,
lighting and times of day where more such photos could be taken. For this photo
I framed out a spot where homeward bound individuals would stroll pass these
empty bike racks. I liked how the racks formed a partition, dividing the individual
from the rest of the city. It also forced them to walk figure grounded along
the leading line I choose for them. I also retained the perspective driven lines from the first photo in this and the other 2 shots. This was to support the idea of the subjects traveling along a time line alone. After framing, all I had to do was wait for the right
person to express the “Alone” theme I was looking for. This gentleman seemed to
be carrying on a dialogue with himself and was completely oblivious to all
else. I took 3 photos of him, concentrating on his stride and arm movements. This
is the 3rd one and captured best the feeling of being separated,
alone in his own head.
This being a muted overcast day in the deep canyons of
downtown an ISO of 500 was needed to get the proper exposure. The rest of my
setting remained standard at f10 with a shutter speed of 320.
Like the first photo, it was the reflected early evening
light that drew me to this spot. The soft contrast between shadows and
highlights made everyone walking through it both stand out and beautiful. I again
used the perspective driven leading lines and rule of odds to compose this
shot. After being there for 15 minutes with very few and very uninteresting people
walking by, I gave up and started to walk away. It was then I saw this
gentleman exit a building and start walking towards me. I hurried back and
waited and watched as he fumbled at buttoning up, his way too thin blazer against
the cold. Again he was the perfect subject at the perfect moment to give that
feeling of being alone. In his case against the cold.
I chose an ISO of 400 to slightly underexpose and bring out
the shadows to contrast the reflected light. I left the other settings in there standard
1/400 sec and f9 positions.
The last photo was taken on the fly. I was hurrying towards
Chinatown one afternoon to meet my lady, when I saw this older gentleman moving
towards me. He looked tired and was ambling slowly carrying his groceries. I
saw that he would be passing by this red tangent of paving stones. I could see that if I hurried
forward to be at the other end of that tangent and take a photo it would make a strong leading line supported by the perspective driven diagonals and triangles. While i picked up my pace I fumbled to reset my camera for the dwindling light and dark background
he was set against. I reached the center of the red tangent as he did, snapped
the photo and carried on. As is sometimes the case, my experience, ability and
good bit of luck allowed me to capture this decisive moment. The moment as two
men, him and me, passed by, were connected by a red tangent and click, and then
onward alone again.
My hurried settings were an ISO of 500 for the cloudy day exposure.
Which turned out to be underexposed by 1 stop in post processing. A shutter
speed of 500 to still my hurried rush pass the spot and his slow amble towards
me and a f stop of 8 because I had ran out of time to change things.
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