Exercise: A public space

For this final exercise in need to transfer my attention from an organised occasion to a semi-organised public space. It needs to be accessible and usable from a photographic point of view ie public parks, a beach. Instead of a single event, there will be a variety of things happening & I need to capture a sense of varied use and how people make their own personal or small group activities within the same general area.

Initial thoughts: the park might areas where people gather in a space to have have picnics, ice creams, where they use space to play football. The beach might consist of people sat together in a space eating chips/ice creams, the way people designate their own area on the beach, children in that space making sand castles, donkey rides take up their own space along the beach.

I need to remember that not everyone will be happy to be photographed by someone they don't know and there could be some people who will regard you with suspicion, especially around children, it's important to be sensitive and avoid causing embarrassment or disquiet.

I decided on the Quarry Park in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, a popular park of several acres on the edge of the town along the loop of the river. My aim was to take images of how people used the space.

not a good composition, but this area of the park is often used for informal kick abouts

The main promenade through the middle of the park, a popular loop around the park

chilling out, this extensive area of the park is used for picnics, playing etc. the Shrewsbury flower show is held in this park as are several concerts throughout the year. There is plenty of room for people to claim their designated 'area' whilst the spend time here

groups of people can be seen chatting, catching up etc

relaxing in the famous 'dingle' created by the late Percy Thrower

there are a great many benches around the dingle where people sit and admire the flowers or just relax, benches are dedicated to people who have passed. The bench allows for a natural designated 'area' that is just yours, while you are sat there, adding to the comfort of the situation

view of a space in the dingle, places to walk and sit

the Quarry Park has always been popular with people of all ages, there is always somewhere to talk 

from a distance, little groups of people can be seen spread out over the space available

Exercise: An organised event

For this exercise I need to research and prepare in advance. I need an organised event where there will be plenty of people and where I can photograph freely and with some variety. An event with people moving around is most suitable, not with spectators sitting in seats.

I will need to take a set of images, I'm aiming for around 10, that tell some sort of story.

Planning - look at what's on this weekend in my area:

Exercise: Standard focal length

For this exercise I needed to concentrate on shooting with one focal length, between 40 - 50mm. The normality of the standard focal length keeps the attention firmly on what is happening in the scene without distraction, as these images show. I found that I was looking for something really interesting to fill the image with as when shooting at 50mm, it's a normal view, as if looking at the scene without the camera, so I felt I wanted to capture something special, which is where the art of street photography is, being observant and quick enough with a measure of luck thrown in to capture what I wanted. Without that special something, shooting at 50mm gives a fairly ordinary view, which at the same time forces the viewer to look within the image to take in the scene.

49mm

49mm

50mm

I think you can see the difference, although slight, between the 50mm and the two 46mm images below, they do appear slightly more compressed.

46mm

46mm

49mm

Exercise: Close and involved

For this exercise I needed to switch to the lens with the widest angle I have. I usually keep a Sigma 17-70mm f/1:2.8-4 lens on my camera, I wanted to use a lens I've not really used much at all, a Canon 18-55mm EFS 1:3.5-5.6 IS STM, as the address the wide angle requirement of the exercise I set off to complete task.

A true wide angle, judged from its visual effect, is around 28mm or less. For this exercise I am to use it close to people, trying to achieve a sense of putting the viewer right inside the situation, when taking images with the viewfinder to the eye, this is quite a challenging way to shoot, I used the technique of shooting with the camera held down against my body to the length of the neck strap. I found this technique very easy to carry out as it was pretty much impossible to notice I was taking pictures, it was even easy to take pictures in shops, anywhere in fact, a very useful trick, but there was the danger of not being able to compose the image so quite a bit of practice was needed to guess the angle most likely to achieve the desired results.

The settings for my camera were (RAW) a shutter speed of 1/250 (so that I could shoot quickly through the moving people with minimal blur) which set the aperture automatically, the white balance was set at cloudy, ISO of 100.

Issues encountered during this exercise: I initially used bracketing to ensure a good exposure but found this drew attention due to the continual shooting of the 3 frames so removed the bracketing setting relying on the shutter speed to allow a good enough exposure, after reviewing the images I considered changing the ISO if I felt the exposure wasn't good enough but the natural light was fine. I walked through town from a busy shopping area toward the also busy but tourist area. I had a check at the images I'd taken every few shots and reassessed the angle I was using.

Exercise: Standing back

For this exercise in am to select a medium-long focal length, ideally between 80-200mm, I must note what practical difficulties I have and what creative opportunities I find the long focal length with the distant position give me.

I used my 75-300 lens for this exercise and found a spot sitting outside coffee shop looking in the direction of the bottom end of a pedestrianised part of town. There was also a pedestrian crossing close to where I was sitting, where people unknowingly lined up for me! When thinking about practical difficulties, the possibility of camera shake was a consideration but sitting outside the coffee shop whilst taking the photo's was quite useful as I could use the arm of the chair to steady my elbow to reduce camera shake. Another practical issue was that of the difference between the telephoto view whilst still trying to look at what was going on with the other eye, so looking for shots through the lens needed me to reduce the zoom back in order to increases the view through the viewfinder or alternatively I moved the camera away from my eye but would have to move a little quicker if I thought a good shot was imminent. I felt quite comfortable taking the photo's and didn't feel that anyone had particularly noticed that I was actually taking photo's of them, and for those that seemed a little suspicious I just pointed my lens nearby at the building so that it looked as though I was taking a photo of something nearby. This is a selection of those taken, I will be taking the lens out and about with me when I can and take advantage of the 'inconspicuous' opportunities gained by using it.

Exercise: Capturing the moment

For this exercise I am to find a 'comfortable' situation and concentrate on bursts of activity, from which I will hopefully capture a 'best' moment.

There are two parts to capturing the moment deciding what it should be and capturing it - not necessarily in that order, whilst I can shoot carefully and sparingly until I know I have it, I can also shoot more freely and choose the key frame later in editing. Moments are difficult to predict and reveal themselves only as they happen, or some later, like Cartier Bresson's 'Man Jumping Over Puddle, Paris, Gare Saint Lazare 1932' which involved some luck in addition to fast reflexes.

I plan to shoot images in the Bailgate/Cathedral quarter of the city where there is often something going on and an abundance of tourists taking photo's. I hope to find an image with a tourist maybe, hopefully with an expression of enjoyment.

The images I took were of some tourists talking to the tour guide on a horse drawn carriage tour, I took photo's freely hoping to capture an image of enjoyment with a nice expression on faces.

It was hard to capture an image with both people facing the camera smiling, I waited for a 'moment' which was quite hard, the best I could hope for in this situation was a pleasant exchange between the individuals, looking like they were having a nice time. The added problem was that of the tour guide wearing a hat which made his expression hard to capture.

I settled on this shot as the best of the bunch, the lady is smiling with her head tilted toward the tour guide, it looks like she likes what she hears, the tour guide is obviously talking and using his hand to express what he is saying.

Exercise: developing your confidence

For this exercise I was to choose an outdoor situation where there would be lots of people and activity, and in which I would feel confident using the camera.

The 'event' I chose to photograph was an open weekend in Lincoln, where usually fee charging venues are open to the public without charge. I started at the cathedral, where many people were looking upwards, which when in a religious location such as this, to capture people looking skywards, implies more than just locating the 'Lincoln Imp' which was about to be illuminated.

The main thing I noticed was that whilst looking for interesting images, I mainly found that my frame was full of either people walking away or toward me, which were on the whole, not very interesting, I think that I would need to situate myself in a cafe in order to people watch and see what goes by

Comfort levels were ok but I felt the need to take the image quickly.

On anther image, I cropped in to focus attention on these people independently looking upwards. I think the wider frame may work better as the context is clearer.

This group of people on a tour was reasonably comfortable to take

This on the other hand was uncomfortable to take and I question whether it was an intrusion of privacy, this was one of the chapels within the cathedral where people light candles of remembrance. I pretended to point the camera at something else, then quickly moved for the shot.

I took this photo from the top of an open top tour bus, I wanted to see if this angle would work for a 'street' photo, if there was something interesting going on then it would have been ok but on the whole I don't think the angle really helps this composition. I didn't feel comfortable enough to take photo's of the people on the bus, but they may have been really interesting.

This image again was taken from the open roof bus, it was really comfortable taking this image, one of those situation where taking a photograph is perfectly acceptable.

After looking for an interesting photo  to leap out at me I decided to just shoot as I walked as Daido Morayama walks the streets of Tokyo. I considered cropping out the people walking into the left of the frame but felt this would avert the focus solely to the person just off centre of the frame, I did though convert the image to black and white:

The focus is less on the blue sky and the cathedral although the lines still take the eye to that part of the frame, I prefer the monochrome version, I may return to this spot and wait for something interesting to occur

There is a little more interest in this image as the person on the left of the image is stepping out across the frame, there is often people sat on the left of this spot, maybe this is another future street location