Why don't I photograph the normal way? Good question, I guess. I'm
pretty well committed to a work process that leaves lots of room for
chance. By leaving the visual selection till after the fact I
increase the possibilities of fortuitous accident. I'm also trying to
find a way to take pictures with my body instead of my head. Is it
working? Yes, to some degree, but it's still too soon to tell. It's
fruitful enough that I have no problem continuing. Of course before
this phase, most of my photography took place while driving cars. I
guess I'm interested in alternative points of view!
The 20 out of 600 is maybe a little misleading. I was estimating the
number of keepers, as they say, not the number of technically
acceptable exposures. I brought it up mostly to make the point that
AF on a pole wouldn't have to have a great success rate to be
feasible for me, working the way I do and with the particular ends I
have in mind.
The painter's pole was partly happenstance. I had started using a
monopod, then left it on an airplane and had this from an earlier
experiment. Some sort of support is very handy for this kind of low
light shooting and the pole gives me quite a bit more range as to
height than the monopod did. It's not very compact when folded up but
for this situation but it's smaller than a ladder or a box would be
and easier to use in a crowd. It's actually great for shooting over
the heads of a crowd. Mostly, it's a handy aid to hip shooting and
seems to actually cause less disruption than just walking around with
camera in hand.
I'm not afraid of people seeing me taking pictures, in fact I've
discovered that the most comfortable way to do it is to be right out
front with it. Feeling and acting sneaky gets you nabbed every time.
Still, it is useful to have a method of getting at least some shots
without intruding into situations. Taking pictures of strangers on
the street without their permission is pretty intrusive and you
probably ought to have some discomfort when doing it!
Where I live the people's reactions to someone hanging around all day
taking pictures at a carnival or fair vary quite a bit. I've been
questioned by the police on more than one occasion and carry a little
album of 4x6s as an explanatory device. (For everybody, not just for
the cops!) Carnivals seem more tense than the fairs. Being an
overweight middle aged white guy with a camera must feed into certain
people's stereotypical fears. These New England country events are
pretty repressed about the carnal aspect of carnival, which is one of
my prime interests with regard to this subject. Around here standing
next to a merry-go-round with a camera can really get people upset,
no need to actually take pictures.
The Agricultural Fairs are entirely different, much more relaxed.
People apologize and duck, when what you are trying to do *is* take
their picture. Sometimes I say, "Don't worry, there's no film in it!"
And of course in both places people come up and ask to have their
picture taken. No interest in seeing the result usually, they just
like to pose.
Parades are another sort of thing. With a camera you can usually go
out march in them, backwards! I've thought about making a badge that
would say PRESS in big letters with 'i am not a' before and
'photographer' after in small ones. I taped little American flags (on
sticks) to my camera once for a Fourth of July parade. It seemed like
it was generally appreciated.
At 4:26 PM +0200 8/4/05, Markus Maurer wrote:
Hi Alan
I still don't get it from your description of the photographic situation why
you don't photograph the normal way?
Even on crowded places you could look for a place slightly above the people
or stand on something to give you a better position.
I would not accept a result of 20 out of 600 exposures to be good enough.
That means to me that you miss quite a lot of occasions just because of your
shooting style.
Could you clarify for me *again* what "using a pole" or "shooting from the
hip" is all about?
Your not afraid of people seeing you taking photos, are you?
I'm going to the street parade in Zurich on august 13 to take people candid
shots too ;-)
greetings
Markus
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan P. Hayes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 3:34 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: SV: Need advice on picking a 50mm AF lens
This is a great list. If you ask even a reasonably interesting
question you not only get 5+ answers, but you guys then proceed to
chew on the subject some more. It's quite enlightening!
Keep going, I'm listening attentively.
This setup doesn't have to work that well for me.
I'm almost infinitely willing to waste card space. I may spend a day
at the carnival, make 600 or more exposures and end up with less than
20 that I want to look at more than twice. If I can come up with
something that increases my technically acceptable shots for a given
scenario from 1 in 50 to to 1 in 15 I'll consider it. Not all of
this stuff uses the pole but it's mostly shot with the camera away
from my face. Currently I'm working in such a way that it's helpful
not to even have to touch the camera much. For instance, I'll stand
just a little bit past one of the game booths, with my istD on the
stick. I'm actuating the shutter with the remote. Spinning the pole
toward the people playing the game just doesn't register as
photography. Working this way, I have a lot better percentage than
shooting from the hip. With a 50 mm I figure I could hit what I'm
aiming at, but the chances that it would be in focus aren't too good.
I'm finding that aiming from the far end of a ten-foot pole is a bit
easier than I thought it would be. It's quite possible that for my
way of working that I could get that to work with a 50, again with
the focusing issue out of the way.
I've only got one AF lens for the istD at present, a 19-35 Tokina
zoom, which I find sometimes seems to get confused in broad daylight,
then again, it does ok in light like this.
Part of my problem is not having any experience with SLR level AF.
(When does the enablement start, hint, hint?)
At 11:17 PM +0100 8/3/05, John Dallman wrote:
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Alan P. Hayes) wrote:
I definitely will go on using my wide angles, but I'm wanting to get
some isolated portraits, for which the 50mm seems ideal.
It is. I do similar stuff indoors at conferences, and use an
FA-50/1.4 for
almost all of it, usually with autofocus. The 50mm is too long to zone
focus in poor light and too narrow for your extension-pole trick to work
very well, I reckon. Going up to ISO 3200 might help.
The autofocus does take its time in poor light, though. Learning to move
in such a way that people register you as a passerby rather than someone
paying attention to them helps a lot, but I still reckon to miss a fair
few shots.
The tricky bit is learning how to use the focus points well. I still
haven't quite managed that; I usually just use the central one, but I
suspect I could do better if I learned what kind of pattern would work
better.
--
PDML means I get more e-mail than spam!
--
Alan P. Hayes
Meaning and Form: Writing, Editing and Document Design
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Photographs at
http://www.ahayesphoto.com/americandead/index.htm
http://del.icio.us/ahayes
--
Alan P. Hayes
Meaning and Form: Writing, Editing and Document Design
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Photographs at
http://www.ahayesphoto.com/americandead/index.htm
http://del.icio.us/ahayes
