Morning Rituals

In the past couple of months I have developed a real flair and fashination for street photography, capturing people in their everyday chores, breaks, thoughts etc. There is something very satisfying about capturing a person at their most thoughtful moment, capturing a feeling in a photo, a piece of their personality. Sometimes it might not be a person but the atmosphere of a place that you want to capture, getting a person in the frame for scale or as a lure for the eye helps add more dimension to the image and accentuate the atmosphere.

I almost always process my street shots in black and white, because the colors have a tendency to disturb the eye of the viewer. A shallow depth of field is often a must because it helps draw attention to your subject by isolating it from the rest of the image. I almost always have my camera set for aperture priority with an aperture of f/2.8 and the AF set for the center focus point only. The reason I use those settings is because I can focus quickly with the center focus point and recompose no matter what scenario, f/2.8 separates the subject from the background at close distance and allows for a fairly fast shutter speed minimizing the chance of blurred subjects, furthermore f/2.8 is the smallest aperture recommendable if you are focusing and recomposing because smaller apertures have to shallow a depth of field to work when recomposing. The benefit of always having the same settings, and knowing those settings, can be crucial for capturing a moment as it occurs, in my experience you seldom get a chance to fiddle with the settings before it's to late.  

Tattoo Stearing out the Window Blurry People Wrongfully Labeled

When it comes to lenses and camera body's for street photography bigger doesn't always mean better, because the big camera and lens will alert people or even scare them off. Ideal would be a smaller "pocketable" camera like the Fuji X100S or similar, Fuji being one of the more expensive options. This is why my old Canon EOS 400D and the very affordable, and highly recommendable, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens is my go to street setup because it's light and doesn't look all that intimidating.

ISP Magazine 
In the four weeks it's take me to write this blogpost I have been contacted by "Iternational Street Photographer Magazine", urging me to submit some of my street photographs for their Best of Street Photography section. I have since submitted several images, many of which you will find in this post. I'll be sure to write a post if one of the images are ever published.

Walking a Brighter Path She Prefers Analog Escalators and flip flops Waiting for the 12:48

Autumn in Black & White Hunting in the Park Headphones and Trolley