A night out with the Sydney Street Photography meetup group proved a great first outing with my new FujiFilm X-E1 and the XF-35mm/f1.4. Shooting mostly at f1.4 and 1/125 second, I used auto ISO up to 6400 ISO. The low light capabilities of this camera make it excellent for night photography without a flash.
More thoughts on this little marvel to come.
If you click on any picture, you’ll get a full size image with the EXIF data.
On Saturdays the teens from the suburbs gravitate towards the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. They gather in groups to practice parkour, crumping and dance to happy hardcore. The happy hardcore crew are the biggest. They move slowly, deliberately, then in unison they burst into a frantic, energetic dance, all flailing limbs and dayglo colours.
I couldn’t resist adding some movement and a slow shutter to create this abstract of a gum tree.
Named after the one of the original European surveyors, Govett, and the Scottish for waterfall (leap), this is the incredible view you get from Govett’s Lookout. Click on the image to see a bigger version.
The scale of the Australian landscape takes my breath away. I used to find the Scottish mountains “big”, in comparison to England, where I spent most of my life. The Highlands seem so small when you look out onto a vista like this.
The Blue Mountains get their name from the blue haze you see in the distance. This is caused by the eucalyptus oils evaporating from the forest and scattering the ultaviolet wavelength of the sun.
South of Gerringong is a nature reserve called Seven Mile Beach. It won’t surprise you that it’s a beach that’s seven miles long.
What did surprise, and delight me, was that there was only one other person there, and they were walking away.
I was able to walk along freshly washed sand, with no sound other than the waves.
I’m still thrown by the seasons and the southern hemisphere!
It’s now September, which means Spring is here. The cherry trees in the Blue Mountains are bursting forth with their blossoms, and the air is filled with the scent of the trees.
Cherry Blossom
Every year a public art work known as the Sea of Hands is created on one of the lawns at the University of Sydney. The hands show support by people for Indigenous Native Title Rights and Reconciliation. The Sea of Hands is made from the colours of the Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Australian flags (black, blue, green, red, white and yellow), and each bears the name of the person who planted it.
If there’s one form of photography guaranteed to stir up strong opinions, it’s street photography. Why? Let’s start by understanding what is considered to be street photography.
Wikipedia describes it as
a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings.
Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment. On the other hand, much street photography takes the opposite approach and provides a very literal and extremely personal rendering of the subject matter, giving the audience a more visceral experience of walks of life they might only be passingly familiar with. In the 20th century, street photographers have provided an exemplary and detailed record of street culture in Europe and North America, and elsewhere to a somewhat lesser extent.
Deep In Conversation
So what does this mean for me? Above all, I see my street photographs as documentary in nature. I am an observer, capturing individual moments which show context and I aim to tell a story – the interaction between people and their environment and each other.
There is a “style” of street photography that attempts to interact with people on the street by shocking them (such as leaping out in front of them and firing a flash) and provoking a reaction that would not exist without the photographer. This doesn’t appeal to me one iota. Not only do I think it shows a lack of respect to others (how would you feel if someone did this to you?), but the photographer changes from an observer to a participant, essentially rearranging the scene to suit them.
Similarly, asking people if you can photograph them before-hand alters the whole dynamic of the scene. Once people become conscious that they are being photographed, their behaviour changes, and you are no longer capturing a “true” or “real” situation.
Rich Pickings
So I observe, and capture those moments of interaction.
Audience
Mike Baker | Photography 