Ho hum, the long summer holiday is over. It was fantastic and involved beaches, pools and cocktails. It also featured photography (of course) and during the holiday I undertook an Arcanum Challenge, set by Glenn Guy, the travel photography Guru. This challenge required:

• An establishing Shot
• A people shot
• An environmental portrait
• Movement
• A close up.
• A closing shot.

My photo essay us now complete. It focused on the grungier side of Thailand, in Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok. As always, hit us up and let me know what you think…

An establishing shot.

A People Shot

The Environmental Portrait

Movement

The Closing Shot.

There you have it, a photo essay. I have now left China and am in India, a land of wonderful photographic opportunities (and new challenges). Recently I have been working on my portraiture. Watch this space!

Keep Clicking, Chris

If you are the person in this picture, then this blog post is for you. For anyone else here is a short story of what happens when you are busted taking candid photos!

Fortunately before this photo was taken I did manage to grab a couple of candid shots! This one is my favourite.

Candid photos are at the heart of Street Photography and people who look interesting are always worth a photo. When you are caught taking candid photos most people do not mind, although in the past, I have been asked to delete a photo I have taken. These particular photos I could not instantly share as I was shooting film. If this photo is you, I passed you my web address. Thank you!

Kids, apples, contrasting colours. What’s not too like?

This is of a group of kids, playing in a park as their parents looked on. I am guessing school was out for the day. I had wondered into the park as I was initially interested in a couple of old people sitting in the bench. In China, parks are great for getting pictures of people practicing their Tai Chi, dancing, or even sword play (try doing that on Hyde Park corner without being shot). Naturally parks are also a place where children play.

Being able to take photographs of children has been a special part of my time in Shanghai. Can you imagine doing this in London or anywhere else in Europe? You would quickly be chased away, and in some cases, I suspect arrested. After taking this photo I noticed the parent (or grandparent) watching me, I nodded, smiled and showed the photo. There was no suspicion, or animosity.  On my walks around Shanghai, photographing children has been a way that will open up a family to the possibility of being photographed. The child is the centre of the family and most parents are happy, or even encourage you to take photos.

In the West, we read about curtailed freedoms in China (some of which are fair points!). However, as a photographer I have had the freedom to photograph children in parks, I can set my tripod up in the middle of major cities and I can wonder around dark back alleys, seeking grungy scenes to capture and rarely feel concerned for my safety. I wonder how many other countries will allow that freedom?

Girl in Park.

Taken on the Ricoh Grii. Eric Kim is one of many fans of this excellent small camera.

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Blogging is important – so here it is. I use WordPress and also use Smugmug (although my Smugmug is in dire need of being updated, I’m too embarrassed to even leave the link here!).

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Include a famous person’s name in your blog post. Hopefully when someone searches for ‘Eric Kim’ and ‘Street Photography’, up will come ‘Pagespics’. If you find me when searching for Eric Kim, please tell me. Cheeky, I know.

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Give stuff away for free. OK, I’m going to start a free Ebook section – which you can view here. Have a look and download my first published book.

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Be expensive. This is where it starts making sense as I don’t even have an option to purchase prints on my site. This is another area to work on.

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OK, I know my f-stop from my aperture and can focus in 110 different ways. Maybe it is time to start tours? Also, I know some cool spots in Shanghai. Hit me up if you want a tour, or come for a day’s photography workshop. Prices start at 500RMB for a tour and a talk! If you are coming from abroad, also hit me up. I can help. Be quick – I’m not here much longer.

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The Ricoh Gr is very cool. Eric Kim is so right about this. It has a great big sensor in a small camera that fits in your pocket. It is also built like a mini brick.

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Vlogging. This was a new year’s resolution that I have still not made. So much to do, so little time. My new Olympus has a flippy screen, so now I have no excuse.

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Content matters. I MUST BLOG MORE….

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I learned a lot on simplifying my photography with the help of Wes Hardaker. Now simplification must further enter my world, I really believe photography can be a metaphor for life. A few simple elements in a frame makes a great shot, while too much clutter spoils a photo.

Keep it simple. Include a few elements and uncluttered background.

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We can succeed and make money from Street Photography, and need to promote ourselves. This is something I struggle with. Would I leave my day job for photography? Not for a while as I have just signed a 2-year contract for a school in Bangalore, India. Moving to India is going to be a dream come true, and I have long been inspired by the photography of Steve McCurry. I also love being a teacher. No-one succeeds alone, so… I guess of you enjoyed this post, please share and subscribe!

Thats all folks, don’t forget to check out my Free Stuff section, an area I would like to grow in the future.

Keep Clicking, Chris

Beware – I’m about to get heavy (there are also some fairly graphic photographs). This is a bit of a personal exploration, feel free to come along for the ride. While photography is my passion, my career is teaching, and I am currently engaged with my Master’s in Education, undertaking research based on Critical Theory. Sometimes my passion and study ideas start to combine.

My studies are leading me towards a desire to affect change. Specifically, I would like to develop my photography to a stage where my photos may lead to a better society. This photographic goal leads on from my research undertaken relating to Critical Theory. Critical Theory is (very basically), the idea that we live in a world that is not equitable, or fair, and it seeks to redress the balance of power. Power is important as we live in a world geared towards the wealthy. Information is a controlled commodity, and as photographers, we have an opportunity to explore and reveal the truth.

Affecting change through images is hard to do in a world where it is widely claimed that, ‘no one gives a shit about your photography’. Perhaps this is what drives photographers to the more extremes of what can be shot, graphic and sexual violence, gun use and gangs. Extreme images can shock, and it is this shock that drives people to change society.

Struggling Girl, Photograph by Kevin Carter

Kevin Carter claimed that this was his most successful photo, and one he hated. This photograph may have been one of the drivers behind his suicide. He was criticised for not helping the girl afterwards. However, I think people are quick to blame others. This style of photograph does affect change, in this case bringing the attention of famine in Sudan to the world.

Napalm girl, Photographer Nick Ut

There are claims that it was through photography that pressure was placed on the US Government to halt the Vietnamese war. Perhaps no photograph did it as well as this image captured by Nick Ut, a picture of a naked, young girl hit by American forces.

Now I am NOT saying I want to head off to a war zone, or an area ravaged by disease and famine, but feel there is a need to make a difference, I’m just not sure how. Yet.

Of late documentary photography has got a lot of grief, and even the integrity of Magnum founder Robert Capa has been questioned. In my next article, I am going to discuss photo manipulation – and am wondering if it matters as much as people think it does…

Below is one of my favourite characters, from one of my favourite places.

The Cobbler

Let’s take a walk down some of the older lanes in Shanghai, we will see a pattern emerge of cobblers at the end of alleyways (called Shikumen in Shanghai). The Shikumen are very narrow alleyways, with small houses built in either side. Washing and cooking facilities are often outside and bathroom areas are usually shared. This moves life to the outside and makes for ideal street photography.

What has this got to do with fishermen and hunters?

The fisherman and the hunter are two metaphors for Street Photographers. A lot of what we do is hunting. We go out and see what we can catch, ‘hunting’ for the perfect picture, or scene to unfold. There is nothing wrong with this technique and it is a great way to explore a new area and find fresh locations to take photos.

The fisherman is different type of Street Photographer, and relates to a style of shooting we should all try. The above shot of the cobbler highlights how this style of shooting works. I know the area well, I know where the light will be at different types of day and have come to know how different people will react to having their picture taken. There are a few shots of this guy, at work and in his home. He happily ignores me, occasionally giving a toothy grin. On this evening I was fishing – the area is well known and photographers will have numerous characters to interact with. As with real fishing, you never know quite what you will catch, and you may come back empty handed. Yesterday I was lucky and caught myself a ‘keeper’.

What kind of Street Photographer are you?

Have fun and keep clicking, Chris.

I recently entered a competition through Lens Culture. I didn’t win, but lived to see another day. Critique is a vital aspect of improving your photography and when you enter a LensCulture event there is alway an option for receiving critique. These guys know there stuff, so it is worth listening to what they say.  Here are the pictures I entered and the comments I received. The next competition is on Street Photography…. now maybe I could win that one!

Chris,

I enjoyed looking through your submission, and can see that you have an innate feel for candid street portraiture. In reviewing your portfolio, images 2 and 5 really stuck out to me as strong examples to use as a guide in your continued photographing. As you submitted to the single images category, let’s take a more in depth look at these images to uncover how you can use them to push your eye and work forward even more.

Photograph 2 is all about angle and layers to me – very well seen and composed! I’d be interested to see what else you shot of this situation. When you find a compelling moment – stick with it a bit to see what unfolds. Photographs 1 and 4, by contrast, lack the sense of context and texture that sets image 2 apart. As a street photographer – use the surrounding environment to your advantage! Also – to be really picky, the focus seems to have slipped a bit in both 1 and 4. Keep an eye on these technical details, even as you respond to the need to work quickly and unobtrusively.

In image 5, while minimal, the surrounding scene and color really sets the boy apart. Quite well seen! Keep looking for color and light, and you’ll find photographs just appear for you when those two things combine. In your framing, you could have pulled back just a bit more, to include the full gesture of the boy’s hands in his pockets. These little details really add up and are often what makes a photograph “great” rather than just “good.” I’ve included some links to photographers talking about composition and street shooting that I hope you’ll find helpful and inspirational moving forward.

Above all – keep photographing! As you move to India – really spend some time editing through and evaluating your contact sheets from the day. If the focus slipped or an image doesn’t work – don’t be afraid to throw it out and move on. Editing is an integral part of the photographic process.

Above all – keep photographing! You’re starting to make some compelling images and I hope to see more!

Additional Recommendations

Recommended Books & Photographers

• Sam Abell on micro-composition
• How to Assess and Edit Your Photographs by Karen Marshall (seminar leader)
• The Photography Workshop Books (especially, Larry Fink and Mary Ellen Mark)
• Stella Johnson
• Street Photography Now, by Sophie Howarth and Steve McLaren
• Thatcher Cook

Other Resources

• Maine Media Workshops
• Ten Things Garry Winogrand Can Teach You About Street Photograph. Eric Kim
• Lee Friedlander – 10 takeaway points – by Eric Kim

That all folks! Keep clicking, Chris

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

Spoiler – bit of a rant here….

Just about managing to get a pagespics tip out before the weekend. There were a couple of choices I was playing with today. The first was ‘Don’t buy a Fujifilm X100f, all the reviews say they are great, so there must be something wrong with it’. The second was ‘Don’t read DP Review and PetaPixel – they say the same thing’.

I am going to talk about the X100f though. The camera sounds fantastic; there are so many reviews reporting how wonderful a tool it is. This makes me a little suspicious, particularly when many of the articles are written by Fujifilm Ambassadors. Most reviews wax lyrically about the film simulation mode. Here is the rub – if you want to use film, use film! There are some great SLR’s out there for less than $100; admittedly there is the cost of purchasing and developing stock, but a 35mm film camera is $900 cheaper than the X100f, and that buys a lot of film.

Shot using Kodak Portra 400 with a 50mm prime.

Here is the second rub – most articles appear to be reviewing the camera based on its black and white capabilities. I’m 95% over B+W, the world is a colourful and beautiful place. Here is the 3rd rub, many reviews talk about the B+W Acros film simulation. What is Acros? I don’t know, but every other street photography shot is now an Acros simulation. Beware, a crap photo is still a crap photo, irrespective of the film simulation mode. There are however 4 reasons why I didn’t write an article about why not to purchase a X100F…

Reading articles about a camera written by someone who does not own that camera is annoying.

The title of the article would be too long for an effective article header.

I will probably purchase a Fujifilm X100F in the end – they look awesome.

It has a FIXED lens – which I like. (I got there in the end!).

So, what is a fixed lens? It is a lens with no zoom. If you want to get closer, you have to get closer using your feet and not your lens.

Why use a fixed lens? Enough reasons to use bullet points…

1. They are small and light.

2. They are (generally) cheap.

3. They have a wide aperture, this allows more light in, which makes the lens excellent      when the light is dying, or just coming up. It also means I can use lower ISO’s.

4. They have a wide aperture (again)– perfect for a nice blurry background when taking      portraits.

5. They force you to be creative.

Using a fixed lens meant I could shoot in this rather dark room, just off the street, without using a flash.

If you have a DX crop camera, then I would recommend a 35mm lens, or a 50mm if you want something that will get you a little closer. If you have a full frame camera, you probably know all this anyway….

If you want a camera with a fixed lens, then I would strongly recommend the Ricoh Grii (or GR if you want to save money and don’t need wifi – which is crap on the ii anyway). It has a beautiful 28mm fixed lens, which I love.

The Ricoh Gr is great for more than just Street Photography as seen with this cityscape.

Ricoh Gr, small enough for your pocket, it’s there when you spot an interesting composition.

Then there is the, er, Fujifilm X100f. It looks awesome. I want one. If I ever start using Acros film simulation, please shoot me…

Have fun and keep clicking,

Chris

OK, this could be a tip, or you could view it as a challenge. I have recently joined my third cohort with the Arcanum and am working with Glenn Guy, a travel photography guru. See his website HERE. Thus far I have taken to shooting most of my work for this group using 35mm film, however, after trudging again to the camera mall to have my shots developed, I remind myself why digital is so much easier. Anyway, a recent ‘Arcanum’ challenge was to post some photos I could never delete.

Snacks sold alongside a bus.

Is there a time in your life that was filled with photography, yet you did not really see yourself as a photographer? Maybe you were starting out and still a rookie, or were loaned a camera for a week or two. I lived for a year in Bangladesh, placed in a nightmare apartment squeezed between a construction site and a demolition site, imagine trying to live at a Nine Inch Nails gig. I went crazy! Leaving the apartment was not much better;  Dhaka is a colourful and vibrant place, yet riddled with poverty and sickness. Strangely it is here where I have captured the most wonderful smiles on the planet. At the time I had a cheap Panasonic point and shoot (although my EXIF is telling me it was a Samsung?). Is it wrong to think ‘I wish’? If not, then I wish I had owned a better camera, wish I new then what I new now and wish I had taken more photographs! These pictures were not re-edited to a great extent, generally the contrast and clarity were tweaked in Lightroom, with a little vignette added if appropriate.

Two girls who lived in Dhaka Train Station.

Dhaka lacks solid rock, so women break up bricks for use in construction.

When you look at your old photos, you will see how much you have improved. I certainly wonder what I was thinking by keeping some of the photos on my hard drive, along with some worrying reminders that I am getting older. Who knows, maybe I have got wiser too…

Enjoy the pics, keep clicking,

Chris