From a distance – wasn’t there this song by Bette Middler? It’s the core theme of these days, with countries slowly returning to the “new normal” and people trying to find the right balance between staying safe and the necessity of somehow have to carry on with their daily lives.
This photograph of a mother and her child was also taken from a distance. I was standing on the balustrade above the “Liebesinsel” (Island of Love), a small island in the River Pegnitz in Nuremberg’s Old Town.
Public life has come to a total standstill on the Streets of Nuremberg. Bavarian state authorities have issued a 24/7 curfew for the next two weeks. We can leave our homes only to go to work (if we have a pass from our employer), to seek medical assistance or to buy groceries. Single persons (or people living in one household) can also go for a walk outside. Only grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and places selling take-out food are open. When things got bad in China and the government locked up 15 million people in Wuhan, we all said that would be impossible to do in our western democracies. Four weeks later we know better. Crazy world. Amazingly, the majority of the affected population is fully supportive of the measure. Including me.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women, merely players”, said William Shakespeare once. It’s also the motto of this blog. This monochrome street photograph is yet another example of it.
Took the Leica on a stroll into town on Saturday. There were noticeably fewer people on the streets of Nuremberg. Could have been due to the week of school holidays. But maybe it was the fear of getting infected with the new coronavirus that leaves people confined to their houses.
Shooting street photography with a Leica produces what I call “the rangefinder effect”. While people in the streets have a tendency to find it disturbing having a big ass DSLR pointed at their faces, their reaction is definitely quite different when they see the casually wandering photographer working the manual focus and the aperture ring of an almost anachronistic looking small black camera.
Obviously, shooting with other retro looking cameras like the Olympus PEN-F or the Fuji X100F is also much less intimidating than using a big DSLR with a huge lens attached. But those cams use autofocus and thus the process is often reduced to a simple point and shoot. The point and shoot approach would also work on a rangefinder using zone focusing (the systematic pre-focusing of a lens at specific distance and aperture to achieve a sharp image), but to get the hang of using a rangefinder I mostly take the time to set up the shots individually. Which, as totally unusual these days, draws curiosity and often a (probably pitiful) smile, the rangefinder effect. Especially when you are close to your subjects, what you have to be when you shoot street photography using a 35mm lens.
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The sun is missing in the Streets of Nuremberg. On days like this I’m in need of some color. So is my street photography. I’m not really looking for the classical high contrast black & white images, but shoot in color, looking for those scenes where color makes the photograph better.
During last week’s stay in Udaipur I also took the opportunity to go for a 15 minute quick stroll through the old city center. Leaving the PEN-F in my bag in the office, I just took my iPhone 8plus along for the walk. Hoping to make some street portraits.
During our recent visit to the Estonian capital Tallinn we also passed across Freedom Square, which features the Cross of Liberty and the Monument to the War of Independence. The 23.5 meters tall pillar made of 143 glass plates commemorates all those who have for freedom in the Estonian war of independence. While nothing particularly spectacular, it was still worth a documentary shot to be part of my Tallinn travel photos. Let me show you the contact sheet with my shots of Freedom Square.
After a truly nice long Easter weekend and great times with friends and Family it is back to work, but at least on a short week. I took this photograph during my recent subway photo walk with the Nuremberg Instagramers (detailed post is coming up). I experimented with long shutter speeds to capture the motion in the passengers exiting the train. One second proved to be the best choice, as I got interesting effects from the moving people while retaining clarity and texture in their bodies. Also, the one second handheld exposure allowed me to capture a sharp train as background. The diagonal lines, the layered people and the motion blur effects add compositional interest and depth, making this image work. Taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1X and the mZuiko 12-100mm F/4.
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At the end of yesterday’s photography coaching session we were also doing some street shooting where I captured this image that I really like for its high contrast, the shadow separating the two faces and the look I drew.
Live is in overdrive right now, between the job that pays the bills, a family function today and plenty of photography related activities: The two Instagram walks this week, the photo coaching session yesterday and a photo shooting session next weekend (I get to try my hands at a real model). Hardly time to blog or even do some editing or postprocessing.
“A Dress” is the task for Day 6 of Cassia’s 10 Day Photography Challenge. Now, this is not exactly a guy’s topic ;-), in a sense that I throw myself into a dress and take a selfie. Although I probably could, as we are approaching the culmination of carnival season here in Germany. But then again, I’m not a carnival guy. And the Significant Other is not big on dresses, so no chance for an impromptu high fashion photo shooting.
So what does a guy street photographer do? He looks for a storefront that features dresses, blends into the background and waits for magic things to happen. I took this photo with my Olympus O-MD E-M1 and the 14-150mm F/4-5.6 travel zoom. Image specs 1/200 sec @ f/5,6 and ISO 150, focal length was 90mm (180mm full frame equivalent).
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