pagespicsWins, fails and bits inbetween
OK, a break from my 10 tips list – heck this is the Internet, go google, there are thousands out there already. This post is more a what have I been up to kinda thing. As ever, life is full of failures and successes, on good days the success wins.
Fail!
I tried a podcast, realised towards the end I was holding the phone in portrait mode and not landscape, I started the day enthusiastically recording everything but at the end of the day it dropped to almost nothing. My podcasting may die a death. The podcast related to going to Luban Lu, the Shanghai camera mall of legends, songs shall be sung about this place. I did not entirely fail as I came back with a shiny new carbon tripod that is as close to perfect as a tripod can be. I may try to publish the podcast – just for fun…
Win…
Battling GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). I found a perfect, still in the box a Nikon FM3a. At 4500RMB (about $650USD) this baby was expensive, too expensive and I resisted. My third eye was seeing into the future as at the end of the month my son asked to go to Vietnam to play against the Netherlands and Australian national hockey teams. The camera would have been great, but cameras come and go. Experiences are priceless. A key lesson here is when you look at how much a new piece of gear costs, think of the FUN you could have with the money instead.
Ongoing…
I am now in my third Arcanum sphere, if you do not know what the Arcanum is then google is your friend. I am now in Glenn Guy’s Travel Cohort. This is forcing me to stretch what I do in relation to Street Photography. Street Photography gets a lot of stick, much of it righty so, there are some awful examples out there and it seems everyone is doing it. The good shots have already been taken, so how do we stand out? To take a lesson from Kodak (digital cameras will never catch on!) innovate or die…
So here are a few shots taken as a ‘travel pilgrim’. Is it Street Photography? I think so, yet each shot is very heavily processed, something street photographers often cite as being unauthentic.
Hongzhen Old Street, from above.
Hongzhen Old Street, from below.
I love both these images and they may well be the last ever images I have of this section of Hongzhen Old Street, as there were bulldozers all over the area when I last visited. Neither are traditional examples of Street Photography and have been developed using a technique called HDR. I hate bad HDR and really do not want to live in a world full of HDR Street Photography! However, I think these examples the HDR are subtle enough for me to get away with it.
Shanghai Overpass.
If you look at this photo, you will see not only the long stripes of colour from the cars, but there are also some people visible on the right. To get these colour stripes you need a tripod and a long exposure (FYI, I set my camera on a tripod, set the ISO to 100, went to aperture priority mode and shot at f9 or f11, you need a higher Fstop if you are shooting full-frame). I wanted the people in this shot, but there was no way it was going to happen using a 10 second exposure. Solution – this is not HDR, but uses two exposures, one at ISO100 and one closer to ISO2000. The two photos were then layered in PhotoShop and the people added from one exposure to another.
So is this cheating? Some would say yes, BUT, how does this differ to someone shooting Black and White when software is used to remove all colour. How does this differ from cameras that use a ‘film simulation mode’ to replicate the look of older footage?
Is this Street Photography? Maybe not, as there is something special about taking a picture and with minimal processing, stating, this is what I saw… However, it is always good to stretch ourselves and try something new.
Keep Clicking, Chris
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