Maxwell Street Market - January 2015

The market was a little sparse this weekend - usually things don't start hopping until spring.  But Maxwell Street is open year round so there's always something going on.  This Sunday it was almost 40 degrees so I grabbed a couple of cameras and sprinted out the door.  Maxwell Street is pretty much my default go-to location for street shooting, there's always a broad & diverse group of people and you can usually find a few characters as well.  

Two things to note - I finally got around to using my 21mm f/3.4 Super Angulon on the Monochrom. The rear element on this lens sits very close to the sensor which means light will hit the corners at an angle - causing corner softness and vignetting (and a red color cast if you're shooting digital color). I'm not terribly pleased with the results - the vignetting is a bit strong for my tastes.  But I don't have any other super wide lenses so I'll just have to make do or use it exclusively on film.

Point 2 - I'm super in love with the Ricoh GR.  As a street shooting pocket sized camera it has no equal.  I just put it in 2m snap focus mode at f/8 - everything from 1 meter to infinity is in focus so taking shots is instantaneous. And image quality is just incredible when you're shooting f/8 and ISO 200.  

The Faces of Occupy Chicago

I recently processed a roll of film from a trip to LaSalle Street in Chicago, which is where the Occupy Chicago folks have set up camp.  I've been shooting events like that with a wide angle (either a 17-35 zoom or a 21mm prime) - it gives me enough depth of field where I don't have to worry about shutter speed or focusing accuracy and allows me to focus more on the content of the shot rather than the mechanics behind it.  Shutter speed - constant. Aperture - constant. Focusing distance - constant at 5-6 ft.  Then it's all a matter of positioning yourself where you want to be and closing the shutter.

I'm out there and for some reason I decide to take out the 90mm Elmarit. It's a great portrait lens (low contrast, kind of flare-y if stray light hits, but a great looking "glow"), but not really your first choice for a cramped-quarters street lens.  It turns out that putting a 90mm lens on naturally turns you into a street portrait guy as opposed to a pure street photographer.  I was mostly setting up in a corner, waiting for someone to come into my field of view and notice me, then hitting the shutter the split second after the deer-in-the-headlights look went away (there's a microsecond where befuddlement turns to puzzlement turns to slight anger turns to acceptance turns to resigned acceptance - it's a great moment to hit).  And that's the moment I think I caught here.  And it planted the idea of a future project (hopefully something I can get done before the Big Cold One hits Chicago) - The Faces of Occupy Chicago.

One of the faces of Occupy Chicago.

Sloping

This is from a recent photowalk with the Chi-togs Facebook group.  This is a group of individuals I met through the Eric Kim street photography workshop.  Eric was back in town for a day so a few of us decided to get together and walk the streets.  This is a great group of guys, I'm reserving some time to blog about them later when I get a chance.

I think we ended up doing more talking than shooting though, as I only ended up with 30-40 shots out of which only a few were good enough to post.  This is one of them, taken during the Halloween festivities in Daley Plaza.  I'm not going to pretend this is a great shot or anything, I do like the angles and slopes of the metal sculpture - I've noticed that I tend to gravitate towards triangles.  Purely unintentional as a matter of fact.

One other notable thing about the photowalk is that I finally shot with all film.  I've tried to balance my film shooting with digital by carrying a Leica along with my D700, this time I took an M3 (w/ Tri-X @ 800) along with an F6 (Acros 100).  The Acros 100 (this shot was taken with it) was a particularly bad choice on an afternoon that was partially cloudy day made worse by the shadows from the Chicago skyline.  Shutter speeds were pretty slow even with a 17-35 2.8, I ended up switching to a 50/1.2.

The picture of health

The picture of health, a photo by SL_Photos on Flickr.
I could have called this one "Chinese Ham" - the camera came up and this guy was instantly on a stage playing his part.  The "Health Source" sign in the background is a nice little touch.  This was taken during a photowalk in Chicago's Chinatown as part of the Eric Kim street photography workshop.  I'll be writing more about this fabulous experience later, once I free up from my busy (non-photography) work schedule. 

From this point forward I will no longer put my gear list for each shot on the blog. I'm done thinking about equipment, I need to focus on the shot & the vision.  I will say that I used a 35mm prime lens, this focal length (along with an ultra-wide) seems to be the ideal lens for street photography.  It's just wide enough to pull in more of the surrounding environment than a 50mm, but not so wide that you have to worry about extraneous elements poking their head into your frame.