The X-Pro2 and a Street Corner

Continuing the blog serialisation of my popular X-Pro Series lust/hate/love story:

Part 140: The X-Pro2 and a Street Corner

 

Before we get into this, as I’ve become accustomed to doing (and hopefully you’ve become accustomed to reading), I’m going to regale bore you with some details of my life!! 🙂

 

I’ve not long come back from a trip to the UK. I’ve just started an intensive Portuguese class and Porto seems to be having a permanent thunderstorm. I’m not talking about drizzle here folks, nope – I’m talking biblical build an ark shizzle, the sound of the water pelting the blinds and hammering the roof keep you awake at night type rain

 

This old testament style perpetual deluge, combined with my language course and the resultant work (turns out sorry miss the dog eat my homework doesn’t really fly when you’re middle aged and older than the teacher, and erm don’t have a dog) means that photography has had to take a bit of back seat for the past fortnight…

 

No real time for pictures? Yeah you tell me. I’m not happy either!

 

But none of this is a huge surprise, well ok I’m a little bit surprised at THAT much rain, but I knew I’d be pretty busy this month (and probably next). So with that in mind, the last free day I had, that was also dry, I made sure to get out with the X-Pro2.

 

Now personally (so YMMV) I find that a passable run of street pictures is more likely acquired during multiple shooting trips. I mean there’s generally a shot that you consider picture of the day when you go out street shooting, and I like to try and collate a few pictures of various days – after all, the second best picture of the day also happens to be the first of the worst pictures.

 

So with that in mind, for this week’s article – we’re going to be seeing pictures all shot on the same day!

 

And to make it interesting these pictures were all (more or less) shot from the same street corner, OK, OK that last part is somewhere between artistic licence and a massive lie 😀 there’s a place I know that has several street corners all in close proximity.

 

As I stood there waiting for street subjects I started thinking about what I was doing away from the fact that I wanted to shoot candid pictures of strangers within an urban setting.

 

I was people watching, that’s what street basically (very basically) is – people watching

 

When we watch people as street photographers (well for me at least) I think we’re watching for them to align with, adhere to and create the composition and scene we’re trying to capture.

 

When we watch people not as street photographers, we’re watching people to observe what they’re doing, to see what they’re watching.

 

So the theme of this little photo essay isn’t really street corners at all, it’s watching people who are watching (which is far less catchy right?)

 

All images shot with the X-Pro2, the XF35/1.4 and edited exclusively with Capture One Express (C1E). No farm outs to other apps, no greater editing capabilities that those provided with C1E.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In case your wondering where the feature image (that’s the header image in WordPress speak) fits into all of this, well I was trying to shoot a candid of someone, who wasn’t quite wise to me, but kept looking across, so I pointed the camera up as a distraction and composed a shot of whatever was above me…. and…. well…. I liked that shot a whole lot more than the one I was trying for 😀

 

The advice that’s often given with street photography is find an interesting place and wait there (I don’t personally do this too often to be honest) to see what transpires, and in this particular instance I spent far longer in once place than I normally would. I very much doubt any of these images will be appearing in my de rigueur and inevitable my favourite shots of 2018 (coming your way in 5 or 6 weeks!) and I stand by my personal belief that it’s rare (rare, not impossible) to make several candid, un-staged street photographs of different subjects all in one session that you’re really pleased with…

 

….But that said, I’m quite pleased (so YMMV) with the continuity that binds these, I was watching them, and they were watching…..

 

…..well you just don’t know do you?

 

And I think a little bit of mystery and intrigue never hurt a visual narrative!

 
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