Couple of photographers and a man dressed in a NASA cosmonaut suit were shooting near the town hall. They have created a lot of interest from all the people. After all it is not often you see a cosmonaut in the middle of pedestrian crossing.
The photographers took quite a number of takes on the theme. Last two I have observed were taken with what looked like Canon EF 70-200 lens. The cosmonaut crossing the road together with all the pedestrians, jumping up and down in an obvious attempt of creating low gravity illusion.
While the photographer was taking these shots from well over 20m I decided on close shot using wide angle and capturing not only his semi levitation but also the the people in the crowd watching his efforts.
This photograph of a photographer taking photograph of a model with tattooed stars on her arm in the George Street reminds me of a dialog I had recently on an Internet forum on subject of street photography.
One of the studio photographers in response to the claim that street photographers meet a lot of people responded that he too meets a lot of people in the street and than … he takes them to the studio to take photographs. There is something tragic and yet funny at the same time that he could not comprehend how talking a person from the street into a studio would remove any authentic character from the person.
The scene of the attractive model in light dress on a cold day is the opposite situation. Here is a studio taken into the street to get some “urban” credence. Will it work? Only if you take photographs for glossy magazines, where reality doesn’t rate.
I found myself today at the sharp end of a triangle. I have noticed the girl on the phone as I passed the construction zone at the Pitt Street Mall. She was half enclosed by the construction safety tunnel and her whole front was out of it exposed to the sun. It looked a bit like the old portraits where other then the person in focus everything turns into a black void.
I took the camera and started to focus on her, when I noticed the two men on the left. From their reaction I gathered they thought I was about to photograph them. I quickly re-framed the photograph to include them in the background. The resulting image looks like a collage of two separate photographs only joined by the invisible photographer as both the men and the girl look at me at the same time.
A little bit of sunshine just for good measure.
This sunrise photograph was taken at Terrigal at the weekend. While there I have met an interesting photographer from Victoria who had his large format camera on the ready to capture whatever the nature would throw at us. I have learnt from him that a single exposure costs him over $50 developed (not printed) and thus he takes a lot of care and preparations, not to mention he is very choosy with the scenes. He did not take a single photograph that morning.
I am not sure if such cost restrictions in the age of digital photography are warranted. In the end he missed out on this spectacular ray display just because it was too expensive. What good is owning such advanced/sophisticated camera if it limits your photography?
This photograph of a woman reading a newspaper is all about usage of available light. As you can see from the photo she is in the shadow with the background much brighter then her face. In posed / controlled photography a photographer would use a fill-in flash or at least a silver reflector to shed some light on her face. In street photography that is unrealistic. So, where did the light come from. Well, in this case there were two sources: the face itself gets a reflection of a white paper she is reading. I have used that to my advantage in many photographs. The second, slightly less effective in this case is the reflection of the pavers. As you can see in the background the light is very bright and the light grey pavers reflect almost white light. Naturally such light only works in limited direction and you need the subject facing the right way.
