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| Missy, on La Croisette, Cannes 2015 |
Now you may have noticed the snap above contains a rare appearance of Missy - she's looking very glam - well she is in the playground of the rich and famous. Hope you noticed her gorgeous black OM-1 what she got for her birthday last year...yes, that's correct, she does film too. Well, she has a digital phone thing as well for lesser snaps but she's actually very good with the OM-1, manual metering and manual focus and all. Way to go!
In this next one she's wearing a fountain on her head. Amateruish composition, wouldn't you agree?
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| Cannes |
Here here she is at the end of our day in Cannes, waiting for the bus back to Antibes. What a glum looking wee bunny she is here. But we were all tired and it was very hot and none of us was feeling very rich or famous at that point in time, so that's OK.
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| La Croisette, Cannes |
But it's amazing how an ice-cream can revive the senses and in no time at all she was back to her happy little self...
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| Just before or just after un glace |
But I digress. Cannes. Having walked around it for the best part of a day I wouldn't give you tuppence for it. Give me Portstewart any day. The Little One was feeling a little peckish just after we arrived so we stopped at a restaurant, sitting down in the sun ready to enjoy a little verre de vin rose, to put us in the mood. Well the mood was quickly dampened by the garcon who looked non-plussed at our order of un pizza, salad vert, eau mineral (sans gas) and deux verre de vin. "Un pizza, pour trois personnes? My boss will not be very happy with that". Now the thing is it was early for lunch and there weren't many sitting in the place, so I couldn't see the problem. Sure if it was packed I could understand his boss wanting to maximise the revenue but there were lots of empty seats and we were paying customers. Put us right off Cannes that did, in spite of the garcon returning to reluctantly accept our order. We tipped accordingly, of course.
But I digress again! The whole point of today's post was to show you the results of my very first attempt at the 'photojournalism' style of photography, as made famous by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Now he has a lot to answer for, does HC-B, since just about everyone with a camera or a phone nowadays fancies themselves as a street photographer. I've never really felt the need to scratch that particular itch - until now, that is. Or to be more precise, until that day in Cannes. And the thing is, I know the reason why. You see my good wife and The Little One decided that Cannes was just the place to do some serious shopping, along the famous Rue d'Antibes. So in and out of this shop and that shop they went as they gave vent to their passion for fashion. Being a bloke, shopping holds little fascination for me, so I hung about on the street outside as one does. And since I was holding an unobtrusive little German rangefinder, I thought I'd try my hand at some street photography in Cannes and so here you go:
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| Rue d'Antibes, Cannes 2015 |
Now it can be quite daunting taking photographs in the street, especially if like me you aren't used to it. I decided since I was clearly a tourist most people wouldn't look twice at me. I leaned against a suitable wall and pretty much kept the camera to my eye the whole time and didn't move, waiting for what I thought might be an interesting subject come into shot. In my favour the shutter release is very quiet on mirrorless cameras and with the general hustle and bustle on the busy street I thought it unlikely that people would notice. The other thing I decided that helps is not taking the camera down from the eye after taking the shot - this way it looks like you are composing your picture and haven't actually taken the shot and you aren't tempted to catch anyone's eye which could invite comment (or worse). I was conscious at times of people looking at me a little suspiciously (or so I thought) but I countered that by pretending to look down the street, as if I was oblivious to their very existence. I think I got away with it...
I'm pretty happy with this first shot above. Check out those heels of the lady in the front and the placement of her feet - awesome! A nice contrast to the younger woman behind who is wearing trainers.
More street scenes to follow tomorrow...
Nice shots from Cannes Michael, and I simply love your street photography debut. Cool thing is that I try to use the very same tactic when I'm doing things like this. Don't catch anyones eye, because that will betray you big time. I look everywhere else but at people, and seem to get away with it in some way.
ReplyDeleteThanks Roy - but you have a harder task with your RZ67. Beautiful though it is, subtle it is not. I know what you mean though - if you act like you are involved in your equipment, or the architecture around you, then the people become invisible (except to the camera of course :) I can't say I'm a natural street-shooter, though. I did try shooting from the hip and got some nice shots of the sky, buildings etc but missed the people completely. More practice required...
ReplyDeleteOn that: I normaly use a bit lighter equipment for the streets than the RZ67 beast. Anything a bit lighter and smaller will usually do the trick, but the good thing with the medium formats is that it seems to make a difference by the fact that you look down into them, and not lift them to your face to take the snap. Don't know, but it's a feeling I got. It's probably not obvious that you're about to take a photo...?
DeleteThanks Roy - but you have a harder task with your RZ67. Beautiful though it is, subtle it is not. I know what you mean though - if you act like you are involved in your equipment, or the architecture around you, then the people become invisible (except to the camera of course :) I can't say I'm a natural street-shooter, though. I did try shooting from the hip and got some nice shots of the sky, buildings etc but missed the people completely. More practice required...
ReplyDelete