Assignment 208: Principles of Location Photography: Theme 2: Street Photography: Shoot 1

Theme 2: Street Photography: Shoot 1: Images from Coopers Sqaure

The following images are from my first attempt at capturing social scenes from Burton Shopping Centre.

The images were all taken on Saturday in and around Coopers Square.  I was really pleased with the results.  I was worried about the reaction from people - but over the course of two hours only two people expressed any concern about what I was doing - the first person covered their face as they walked by, the second person actually stopped to ask me what I was doing.

They couldn't believe that there was no restrictions on what I was doing and asked me to remove any photo's of her daughter - as it happened I didn't have any photo's of them.

More often people were keen to get in on the picture.

I was pleased that I manage to take all of the photo's in manual mode - even manual focus - that was a first for me.  The fist set of images are inside Coopers Square.

ISO 200, f4.5, 1/80, focal length 65mm

This image could have done been with being a bit sharper on the focus - but I'm sure she's asleep?

ISO 200, f4.5, 1/80, focal length 18mm

The best images that I took were all done using the technique that Steve suggested.  I made sure that I was in focus and that the settings were ok through the viewer then lowered the camera to my waist and shot a few continuous frames.  I liked this one with the lads all watching the girls walk by.

ISO 200, f5, 1/100, focal length 35mm

I liked this image as it reminded of some of Martin Parr's images were there is a close focal point and a secondary focal point.  You have the young couple holding hands in the forefront, contrasted by the two grumpy looking fellers in the background on the right.

ISO 200, f4.5, 1/80, focal length 70mm

Just how bored does this guy look?  Don't think he was getting a lot of takers.

ISO 200, f5, 1/80, focal length 70mm

I think this woman has clocked me by the look on her face.

ISO 200, f5.6, 1/100, focal length 70mm

I like this picture - that typical look a teenage gives his dad - but it is just a tad over exposed.  I like the richness of the colours but it needs lightening up a touch to take the shadows out the faces.

Rather than crowd this blog with the images from outside I will put them into a different blog.

What I learned from this session in the square was how to be bold - most people will have no interest at all in what you are doing - and for those that are just be prepared to be honest about what you are doing. 

Using the benches in the centre as a focal location I think works well, as does the low level photography used to capture the flow of people as they walked by. These techniques used in these images bear similarities to both Martin Parr's perspective and Tom Woods.  Tom Woods works because of the location - they are all centred around a point in town, and Martin Parr's in the respect of a number of the images have a foreground and background focal point.

As these are indoors I need to be careful with the light.

Next time I would also like to spend more time on the composition and look for the stories that I want to convey.  I think that I tried to do this with these images but better placement of the different characters and their surrounds could have produced more compelling images.