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What do we photograph on the streets?


colint544

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lambda.

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Colin,  I agree: street photography is a hard and all too often unrewarding slog, but there are some fine pictures here. I especially enjoyed the face in the car window -- everything falls into place in that one and the result is genuinely unsettling and unusual. I admire your persistence.

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Colin,  I agree: street photography is a hard and all too often unrewarding slog, but there are some fine pictures here. I especially enjoyed the face in the car window -- everything falls into place in that one and the result is genuinely unsettling and unusual. I admire your persistence.

 

Thank you very much

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Thank you all very kindly. Agree that shooting film on the streets is the hardest of all, because of the very low success rate. ...

Thanks for all your input, and do feel free to add your own pictures.

 

My apologies for cutting of your comment in the quote. And my apologies for been different.

And here is why. My digital street photography was  always more like photography of the street. While I'm into people. I watch documentaries about people, not soap operas, I talk to people I never met before and I listen what they are talking about. I do look at people on the street. I look for short stories since I was kid. Then I started to take my first pictures (with FED-2 film RF) it was about people I was with. Not portraits, but stories like photos. And somehow digital still doesn't works for me for it. DSLRs, dP&S, dLeica I could take many pictures with them on the street, but only few keepers.

 

My street photography, not photography of the streets began to me with switching from years of DSLR to film tiny OLY XA RF.

This is one of my first street pictures with it. First days after I purchased XA in Vancouver, BC (on my daugher and ex-boy friend money as BF gift):

 

8114843464_c9fb8c6bce.jpg

 

Surprisingly it gave my more keepers (for my amateur, walk and after work instead of going to pub street photography :) )

This camera almost never required new batteries and surprisingly it was much more accurate, yet, simple comparing to digital camera to get the picture.

 

8165578530_4961651194.jpg

 

It served me well in my re-discovery of street photography and then as all old cameras with electronics it quit on me.

I replaced it with Bessa R and... it didn't worked this way. I became dependant and addicted to TTL. I was getting slow and too concentrated to get exposure right. Because XA was doing it for me.

Yet, instead of getting another AE camera I went with ... M4-2. And strange thing happened. I was set free. I started to fiddle with M4-2 after I took hundreds of exposures many of which weren't failure technically at all.

With film M I don't think about exposure or how to focus it right. It became something what they say as my extension rather than camera.

 

Street photography is like fishing I learned. It is not about sitting in the boat with automated rods and sonar. It is about walking and getting to the unusual places at unusual time. And then fish hits.

Street photography is  a lot of walking for me. And looking around. And just like with fish willing to bite, keepers are not about taking it conveniently with digital cameras, it is about simple tackle in your hand. So simple and  primitive you don't have to think how to set it quick and cast for the bite.

 

36874643951_51866d0321.jpg

 

 

35889972605_f00e4be6d3.jpg

 

 

31514115265_c133b30ec9.jpg

 

 

29629516101_0e40eb62bb.jpg

 

But I'm not into big fishies. ) Just an amatuer after work looking at people.

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My apologies for cutting of your comment in the quote. And my apologies for been different.

And here is why. My digital street photography was  always more like photography of the street. While I'm into people. I watch documentaries about people, not soap operas, I talk to people I never met before and I listen what they are talking about. I do look at people on the street. I look for short stories since I was kid. Then I started to take my first pictures (with FED-2 film RF) it was about people I was with. Not portraits, but stories like photos. And somehow digital still doesn't works for me for it. DSLRs, dP&S, dLeica I could take many pictures with them on the street, but only few keepers.

 

My street photography, not photography of the streets began to me with switching from years of DSLR to film tiny OLY XA RF.

This is one of my first street pictures with it. First days after I purchased XA in Vancouver, BC (on my daugher and ex-boy friend money as BF gift):

 

8114843464_c9fb8c6bce.jpg

 

Surprisingly it gave my more keepers (for my amateur, walk and after work instead of going to pub street photography :) )

This camera almost never required new batteries and surprisingly it was much more accurate, yet, simple comparing to digital camera to get the picture.

 

8165578530_4961651194.jpg

 

It served me well in my re-discovery of street photography and then as all old cameras with electronics it quit on me.

I replaced it with Bessa R and... it didn't worked this way. I became dependant and addicted to TTL. I was getting slow and too concentrated to get exposure right. Because XA was doing it for me.

Yet, instead of getting another AE camera I went with ... M4-2. And strange thing happened. I was set free. I started to fiddle with M4-2 after I took hundreds of exposures many of which weren't failure technically at all.

With film M I don't think about exposure or how to focus it right. It became something what they say as my extension rather than camera.

 

Street photography is like fishing I learned. It is not about sitting in the boat with automated rods and sonar. It is about walking and getting to the unusual places at unusual time. And then fish hits.

Street photography is  a lot of walking for me. And looking around. And just like with fish willing to bite, keepers are not about taking it conveniently with digital cameras, it is about simple tackle in your hand. So simple and  primitive you don't have to think how to set it quick and cast for the bite.

 

36874643951_51866d0321.jpg

 

 

35889972605_f00e4be6d3.jpg

 

 

31514115265_c133b30ec9.jpg

 

 

29629516101_0e40eb62bb.jpg

 

But I'm not into big fishies.  ) Just an amatuer after work looking at people.

 

Some very nice moments on the street there. I think you're onto something. I do think two main things about shooting film. Firstly, if you get a shot you're really happy with, if it's on film it's more special than a shot which only exists as a digital file. I like the fact that a film image is a tangible artefact that was there with you the moment you pressed the button, something you can hold up to the light and examine, or file away. You can scan it or print it, and it won't become obsolete any time soon. I lost a huge amount of photographs I shot digitally between 2003 and 2005. They're gone forever, but the pictures I shot as a child still exist as negatives and prints.

 

The second thing about film is that you can't just machine-gun a scene like you can with digital. You only have so many frames on your roll of film, so you tend to take greater care, and think more before you take the picture. However, I don't think we're too far away now (if we aren't already there) from having digital cameras where you simply hold the button down and the camera will shoot, essentially, a movie, and you later simply select the frame you want. No more waiting for the precise moment to fire the shutter. That might be easier but, I think, maybe less rewarding.

Edited by colint544
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What amaze me in this thread, is that film and digital may often be confused. And this is what I like in the Leica camera.

M240 + Lux 35/1.4 Asph.

 

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E.

Edited by epand56
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The second thing about film is that you can't just machine-gun a scene like you can with digital. You only have so many frames on your roll of film, so you tend to take greater care, and think more before you take the picture. However, I don't think we're too far away now (if we aren't already there) from having digital cameras where you simply hold the button down and the camera will shoot, essentially, a movie, and you later simply select the frame you want. No more waiting for the precise moment to fire the shutter. That might be easier but, I think, maybe less rewarding.

 

I'm used to put in my digital M only low Gb cards, and this gives me a limited number of pictures I can take. I try to feel like I'm out with say, 3 36-exposures film rolls in my pocket and so I have just a little more than 100 exposures available. So I have to be careful and can't machine-gun.

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Some very soulful images here, guys, lovely stuff. And I agree with the above sentiments.I think it's true, and a good thing, that there is that sort of 'look' to a Leica shot, whether it's film or digital. A thing I like about a Leica, is that I want to pick it up and go out and shoot with it, do it justice. With a DSLR or a mobile phone, I just don't feel as enthused.

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Wow! Fabulous.

 

thx a lot.

this thread rocks :)  so many amazing  street pics!

 

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