Thread: Some more Street photography

Thanks Luckypenguin, appreciate your comment and explanation, great images to demonstrate. I've looked at my pictures and what you're saying makes alot of sense. I think I'll try both :)

This is a great thread.


Don....I have said this before "I understood what I thought you meant, not what I thought you said" :0) (that is more to do with my own insuffiency) But I know exactly what you mean about seeing something as though it is the last time. There is more intensity and maybe a sadness about it.

I am new to this, compared to Ray and Don. I am not technically gifted in terms of my camera.........but I know I have an eye. Being an avid people watcher and an ex detective I do see things worth snapping quite easily.

My work is more to do with interesting faces than juxtapositional coincidence/irony etc

But (for me) one thing I know is.....get in close. I almost feel a tingle in the nape of my neck, then it is time to fire.

Here are some from yesterday. One is positional......and probably more to do with cityscape with people in it. The remainder are, for me, interesting faces, dress etc.

cambridge Street Shots 19052012 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I like 'em Pete, but I have to say I prefer the stills to the video - I like to be able to linger over some shots and move past others more quickly. But you're work is always high quality, regardless of format...

-Ray

Hi all, I went out again and tried the closer approach with a market trader, must admit that it felt alot different. Even though he was aware of my presence and what I was doing I think it would have been uncomfortable for both of us if I'd got any closer, like a line that neither of us wanted to cross.
One question I have is, are my settings correct as my pictures lack the punchy contrast I see on other black and white images. I tend to use ISO 400 with as small an aperture as possible, although I now have a filter attachment for a polariser or uv filter on my G12?
Please feel free to comment, your advice is always welcomed and extremely useful.

Best wishes to all

Kev

dog walking by NIKKI O BRIEN, on Flickr

Originally Posted by elsie350

Hi Kev,

Nice work. You've got in nice and close and framed your subject well. You've even got a mysterious figure through the glass in the background...very cool!

Re: B&W settings

I gather that you've used the G12's B&W jpeg setting? I only started to do B&W seriously a few years ago and have yet to find a camera where the B&Ws come out exactly as I want, and certainly not how I want them every time. Sometimes they're too flat, sometimes they're too contrasty, sometimes they're okay. Aside from that, I don't like to "commit" to a B&W jpeg at the point of shutter release (unless I am saving the RAW file as well) because it a) leaves me no option to have a colour image, and b) removes all the colour information that I might use to improve the B&W conversion.

I think that to do really good B&Ws you need to do the processing yourself by starting with a full colour image and control the conversion to B&W by adjusting the strength of each of the colour channels and manipulating the tone curve/s. Either that or use a dedicated B&W conversion software like Silver Efex. Keep in mind that that's just an opinion from someone who doesn't mind spending time processing images.

Hi Nic many thanks for the feedback, good to know that I'm on the right track.

You are very right, I was shooting in custom mode, black and white in jpeg. I have since changed to colour, as my daughter also pointed out that I can always change it to black and white in the camera or Photoshop cs2. I will try to shoot in raw and jpeg and see if that makes a difference and have a look at conversion software.

Many thanks for all the advice, I'm really enjoying using my G12 and getting alot out of it.

Best wishes

Kev

Second attempt at processing