A touching Moment

We often wonder what the future will hold and what will happen to those important relationships in our lives. In today's touching photograph we have a candid image which captures something of the depths and friendship of love.

"A Touching Moment"

Pictures can tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the subject of the picture. We don't know this couples personal history and if we did then this image may say something else to us, but we can recognize that unspoken communication of love. To me it is a picture of hope, it is a demonstration that the important things of life can continue into our latter years. How does it make you feel and think?

21st Century: The Communications Age

"Important Message"

I love this image taken in Glastonbury it seems to say so much about modern like in Britain. Wherever we are communication technology is not far from us. Was this message important, we will never know, it may even have been a facebook status update. Whether or not this individual message was important doesn't really matter, we are now able to be in touch with our family and friends so quickly and so easily.

Most of the people I saw using their mobiles like this were young women, most of the people who were talking on their mobiles were men. Perhaps this was unusual, but do women use their mobiles to text more than men, and could that be due to the size of the keypads becoming so small, better for more slender fingers.

As an image it gets me thinking about my reaction to modern communications  and how they can reach us in any place and at any time, do I really want that? What about the space I need to find, space for recreation and reflection. Space to escape the constant chatter of noise and information around me and discover who I really am and what is important to me in the now and at this place.

Or do I want to be like the cyclist in the next image, busily multitasking and perhaps not stopping to ask if it is a good idea, or even safe. This was at a junction.

"Multitasking"

Images that read us!

For me street photography is a project to challenge me photographically and artistically. It is a genre of photography in itself as images have to be quickly taken and not set up. The challenge, whilst doing this, is to produce photographs that are of a high technical quality: correctly exposed, well composed, and with good structure and processing.

 They should also tell a story. The story that the pictures speak to me may well be, and probably is, different to what others see in them. The aim is to get images that read us, if we let them, as much as we read them.

They may tell us something simple like the image of the elderly gentleman elsewhere on this blog which just captures a moment in time in the life of one person. Yet in doing this it shows something of the nature of humanity and life in 2011. His walk and the scene reminds me of people I have known and, with those memories, raises questions for me about what it means to grow older and the physical challenges that this brings. Have you ever noticed how when people grow older they use their arms less when they walk developing a walk which is stiffer and harder. This raises for me the question of how does this happen and where am I on this path of physical ageing.

But the image may raise for you different questions or even none at all. However you react to this, or other questions, street photography is not about taking snaps but, through images, exposing the nature of normaility and the deeper questions behind it.

Another Quick Camera Trip

Today I took another quick go round with the camera. his time using a 45mm setting on the lens and shooting without composing, literally from the hip. Below are two photos from this 15 minutes shoot.

"Meeting Place"

"Morning Constitutional"

This is a completely new technique for me as I usually shoot in a controlled environment where the lighting and posing are carefully considered and the pose and composition set up in camera. Shooting from the hip in this way gives you no chance to look through the viewfinder and with a lowish focal length kit lens you have to go in quite close. If the angle of the camera is slightly wrong then you either get all pavement or all sky. It was fun to try though. The other problem with kit zoom lenses in these circumstances is that they are slow lenses and on a dull day like today it is very hard not to get camera shake.

I had to put the ISO up to 400 which on my camera has quite a bit of noise. Oh for the day when I can have a faster lens and a higher spec camera. But such a camera and lens wouldn't make me a better photographer. The good photographers of the past had cameras less powerful than mine.

Street Photography - A morning in Glastonbury

My first post is to share some initial images taken on Tuesday 1st November between 10am and 11am in Glastonbury High Street, in Somerset England.

"Breakfast"

and then of course there was the type of breakfast so often seen in Glastonbury, it is all part of the local colour.

 "Glastonbury Breakfast"

 There were people resting deep in thought

"Pensive"

and people taking a break

"I Needed This"

and the Big Issue Seller

"Big Issue"

It was a miserable day and not many people around but each picture tells a story.

Street Photography - People in their Environment

I have set myself a photographic challenge purely for the fun of it.

Street Photography - People in their Environment

I work as a photographer mainly doing family and portrait photography, but also undertaking commercial commissions and more general photography when required. All these forms of photography are carefully planned, set up and, in the case of portraits, posed to get the best possible image that the client will enjoy looking at.

The challenge that I have set myself is very different, it is to take unplanned and spontaneous street photographs as they arise. It is also to do this in a way that produces special professional quality pictures that tell a story about the normality that is in everyday life. For me this project is about people in their environment, and not about nice local buildings, and so the focus of each picture and its story should be about the people in it more than the building behind it.

 Living in Glastonbury many of my images will be set in and around this area and especially in the town center close to where I live and work. Some times I will seek to go further afield. As I begin this project I have no idea if anyone will show any interest. but if you do please join with me comment on my posts and images and perhaps do likewise wherever you are. let me know and keep in touch.