Category: Street Photography

Posted on

getting the perfect shot

Re-post November 2011

One of the great things owning a Leica M9 and 50mm summilux is the ability to shoot in the dark.  For most, this is only possible with the use of a flash.  Personally, I try to shoot without one as much as possible because I like natural lighting.  Shooting at low apertures such as 1.4 allows for shooting in almost complete darkness (the leica noctilux is probably the only one that truly will allow you to do this).  It is much more difficult to focus, prevent blur, and you have to shoot at high ISO’s.  Fortunately, the M9 can perform this at 1000, 1500, and even 2500 ISO.  Unfortunately, I typically don’t like color pics at this high of ISO therefore I always change them to black and white.  The noise at these high ISO’s add to the quality of black and white.

A friend of mine, Hiro Shibuya (he was my chief resident when I was a first year) and I were recently in Washington D.C. for a conference and decided to spend some time sight seeing and taking pictures.  We were at the Lincoln Memorial and he was trying to get that perfect picture and I caught him in the act.  In this instance, him being out of focus works because of the sense of movement the viewer gets.  This was probably one of my favorite pics.

You can view Hiro’s pictures here.

Posted on

Another magical day

Re-post October 2011

I feel like I’m posting a lot of pictures from Chicago recently.  I was there twice within 6 weeks at workshops and fortunately captured many pictures.

Here is a wedding that we came across when walking along Michigan Avenue.  What really caught my attention was the bagpipes.  I focused on the bride and groom and stuck my camera up in the air and caught this picture.  I really like the bubbles being released into the air, it adds a little to the shot.

Posted on

Where is he?

Most who know me, know my favorite camera to shoot with is my Leica M9-P.  Yesterday, Leica announce a new M series camera called the Leica M Monochrome.  At first, buying a camera that only shoots in black and white may sound a little crazy (especially for the price) but if you are someone who shoots a lot in black and white it makes some sense.  The pictures I’ve seen have been astounding and the ability to shoot at ISO 10000 and still be useable makes it even more interesting (the Leica M9 does not shoot great beyond ISO 800).  I noticed one of Steve Huff’s shots was ISO 2000 and 1/1500 of a second (WOW).  Look forward to reading more about it.

I took this shot lost fall at the Lincoln Memorial. It was dark and I noticed her sitting patiently waiting for someone.

ISO 2500 1/45s f1.4 50mm summilux

 

Posted on

Man on a bike

I don’t typically discuss my post-processing but today I thought I would mention a few programs that I routinely use.  I store all my pictures in Apple’s Aperture 3.  Most who read this blog are probably familiar with it or know of it.  It’s basically a program to easily store and file all your pictures (i.e. library).  You can also make adjustments to your pictures without making permanent changes.  Most, use Adobe’s Lightroom or the casual photographer will use iPhoto. I’ve used all 3 and iPhoto is definitely more for enthusiast..  Lightroom and Aperture are very similar and I really wouldn’t say one is better than the other.

I use Adobe Photoshop 5 or more recently 6.0 (beta).  I use this when needing to make more complicated fixes or needing to layer my pictures.

Last, I routinely use Nik Software’s Silver Efex 2 and Color Efex 4.  Both allow very controlled and  unique changes and I highly recommend both.

I’ve posted a prior shot of this guy with cars flying by him.  This is just one shot when he was patiently waiting for traffic to clear long enough for him to go.  This shot was edited with Aperture 3, Photoshop 6, and Nik Software Color Efex 4.

Here’s the previous post.

ISO 160 1/30 f/1.4 50mm summilux

Verified by ExactMetrics