Throwing Away Dusty Old Hats

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Over the past two and a half years, my photographic process has been under continuous reduction and refinement to the point where it is now all about minimalism. I've swept the floors, thrown out the empty boxes and sold off the items I no longer need to a point where I shoot many subject matters with one perspective on one camera. After years of making pictures, my process has shifted its weight to the making of the pictures themselves and little else beyond the resulting images.

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People Looking At Things

Bit of random day in the city (again) shooting with Rocky's Summilux 35mm (again). It's a curious thing, this depth of field tool we have as photographers. As someone who uses a rangefinder with an separate optical view finder, I've tried not to rely on having shallow depth of field, but as I add the razor thin focus of the Summilux to toolbox again, I find its effect to have resonated with how I want photographs to portray their subject matter.

I think I'll have to go back to my own Summarit f/2.5 to recalibrate myself and figure out if I really would prefer to have the separation that is only possible at the wide aperture.

Day With The Summilux

Rocky was kind enough to lend me his Leica Summilux 35mm f/1.4 lens instead of my Summarit f/2.5. I've really forgotten what it's like to shoot environmental portraits with such shallow and dreamy depth of field. I actually really missed it to be honest and may end up with one in the future to replace my Summarit.

The 37th Frame Episode #6

Today I met up with Simon for breakfast then headed round to Morgan's to record episode six of the West End Camera Club's 37th Frame podcast where we chatted about what we've been up to in the last month as well as thoughts behind the way we use our time, especially in creativity.

West End Camera Club Catchup

Hannah and I came back to a consistent layer of clouds covering Brisbane all week, which if nothing else, made for nice soft lighting to take pictures with when catching up with everyone from the West End Camera Club.

Sunlit Winter Streets

I've made so many pictures this weekend that I think I need to have a break for a couple of centuries. Luckily, I'll be in Bali next week with Hannah on a much needed two week holiday. I think I'm going to leave the camera off more often than not. No need to make this a photography trip when there are routine massages and swimming to be had every day.

A Never Ending Body Of Work (Also, Rangefinders)

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This photo blog for me has a become a lifeline, a cathartic process, a place where I can finish a day of shooting then move forward to the next day out. I've written about this in the past, but I wanted to revisit the topic.

I recently "put the foot down" and declared to my inner dialogue that I am 100% not going to accept commissions anymore, given that the last photo shoot I did was last year. In the past it was always something I fought against—the notion that I should, for some reason, not close the door on photography work, considering my older collections of portraits of bands, party shooting and other commissioned jobs.

But now that I've been shooting for myself so completely over the last year or two, I finally said "No". This is it. I only want to make photographs for myself. In the end I still make portraits all the time, make plenty of landscapes, take photos of a band on the odd occasion, but it's entirely opportunistic with no pressures to "deliver". It's me with my one little camera and 35mm perspective, all the time.

And as I keep discovering every few months, my bodies of work such as street photography, landscapes and portraits are building themselves. It feels great to have spent the last couple of years and see a cohesive bundle of good and great photographs that I can draw on in the future for projects such as photo books. Just recently I created a 20 page photo book of landscapes and nature related photographs for my father's birthday, drawing on the last few years of sunrise hikes and mountain climbs.

That's where I really love the process of just making photos, publishing the ones I like, and not worrying about how much of the greatness factor is in them as long as they are competent and mean something to me.

The photo blog in particular is not meant to only be about "great" photos that are few and far between. It's about releasing the pictures I enjoyed making from my grasp at the end of the day and letting it them into the wild to take on their own meaning. I've only really been shooting this way for three years. I can't wait to have been making photos consistently, in the same way with the same eye for ten or twenty years. My own future of photography makes me excited.

And that's where I'd like to touch on the most underrated camera design, rangefinders. There's an amazing thing that happens when you use a camera that does not also incorporate the depth of field into the viewfinder. With rangefinders, you don't get to see the soft, out of focus components as they will be. Instead, you are shown only the detailed compositional elements. It means that you actually still consider those elements even if they aren't in focus.

To me, it has become really important to not rely on composing with a shallow depth of field. It can become a crutch in ways, especially as you are learning how to deal with it, and the rangefinder gives you to facility to see all of the elements in focus as they will be placed in your frame, regardless of whether you have elected to include or exclude them from the focal plane. That is calculated as an extra measure of composition in your head, but it doesn't tend to distract like it can with a through-the-lens viewfinder such as in SLRs.

One of the other benefits of having a viewfinder on the side of the camera is that by design, your face is still showing (unless you shoot with your left eye, of course). With a rangefinder, I don't feel like I'm hiding my face behind the camera body. It's a fluffy issue, but one that I do I prefer now that I've used those types of cameras for so long now. It's probably why the new Mamiya 7 medium format film camera I bought feels so natural to use.

And finally, the lens are so tiny. Gone are the days of wielding enormous SLR lenses. Even the Sony mirrorless FE lenses are as big as a DSLR. It didn't take long for me to get used to a 35mm lens that was the size of golf ball.

Water Falling From The Sky

This year's winter has turned in the past few weeks into a wet, raining cold Summer for us here in Brisbane. I'm looking forward to getting back out into the sun soon and using the Mamiya 7 in the country, but until then here's even more street photography.

Street Pictures & A Protest Rally

The usual... Breakfast with Simon, Rocky and Aaron from the West End Camera Club then wandered into the city for some street photography, writing and catching up with folks. There was a protest rally on to fight for the rights of the asylum seekers and refugees over on Nauru.

I also took my Mamiya 7 out to shoot a roll of Kodak Portra 160 on for the first time. 

Art & Street Photography

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In my view, street photography primarily has one of two purposes, to document or to make art, even though these may both be present in some quantity. Artistic street photography associates less with the who, the where and the when, emphasising the composition such as lines, subject placement and colours. Documentary street photography associates more with those aforementioned human elements.

But these intentions behind street photography are easily brought to odds with the vulnerability present in the act. Making a photograph of a stranger walking down the street can, especially if you have a non-confrontational nature, cause anxiety and apprehension as to the consequences of such an act.

In most other genres, there is a certain amount of control in how you make a photograph, whether it's a portrait, a landscape or something else entirely. You can typically move and pose your subject, add or alter the lighting, adjust the set or props, or simply take your time.

On the other hand, what I find most satisfying about street or documentary photography is the lack of control. To make a great photograph of a unique moment with a stranger takes more than just technical skill. It requires a constant awareness of your surroundings, precise execution of timing and a certain lowering of your inhibitions, which is arguably one of the biggest components of the genre for me.

Imagine if someone walked down the street, pulled up their camera and took your photo as they passed. How would you react? Would you be put off? Offended? Or perhaps intrigued?

As someone who practices street photography, I guess I would be more intrigued than anything. I would wonder if they are also a street photographer? I would wonder what do they shoot with and where I might see the resulting image later on.

On the flip side, someone without any knowledge of the intent behind street photography might take offence at their photograph being taken without their permission. Many people not only dislike being in photos, but also have a justified scepticism when it comes to ill-intent and suspect motives, especially in an age where everyone has a camera in their pockets.

One aspect of practicing street photography is realising that at some point, someone may take noticeable offence toward you, possibly even with physical violence. Even if this is likely to be a rare occurrence, as someone who prefers to bear no ill will towards anyone if I can help it and also has no other intent than to create interesting and thought-provoking photographs, I honestly don't know exactly how I would react. Does the desire to create art prevent you from thinking about how others may feel?

To me, that's where the public's perception about photographers in general can come into play. A certain camera can put off a certain vibe. A DSLR or large-lens mirrorless camera can often incite a voyeuristic vibe. Indeed, in my very own city, there are a few photographers who wield telephoto lenses and wander around the mall scoping out people, taking no care at all to hide their possibly misunderstood intentions.

Rangefinders and compact mirrorless cameras, on the other hand, often not only are small and unthreatening in appearance, they often disarm and introduce a novelty factor. "Is that a film camera?" is a question I am often asked by people I meet when they see my digital Leica M. It's not, but people are easily fooled. In the grand scheme of camera gear, the rangefinder design has largely fallen out of fashion except in cases such as the Fuji X Series cameras.

Not only that, learning to use your camera efficiently so as to take the shot and move on fluently is something that helps reduce my own anxiety regarding that exposure to vulnerability, even if it's all in my head. People often notice you when you have a camera up to your face as you walk by. It's hard not to! People don't usually walk around with cameras in front of their faces.

But if you can pull off all of that, seeing the potential for a street photograph, zone focusing beforehand, nailing the composition in a split second and guessing the exact time at which your subject crosses the focal plane can lead to great satisfaction when you review your day's work and make the selections.

One of my fundamental desires in attempting to make street photographs is to capture some semblance of a story within the frame, to portray a moment as a moment, not just a person standing idly amongst their environment. If I can capture someone mid-walk, mid-smoke, mid-laugh or clearly in the depths of conversation or thought, I've been successful.

To me, it is these moments that make a street photograph something worth staring at. To wonder what they were doing, what was making them laugh or cry, or where they were going is what I would consider the elements that elevate these kinds of documentary photographs into the realm of art, and make them worthy of printing and viewing on paper or in a book.

As my dive into the genre of street photography gets deeper, I find myself beginning to pursue the artistic and documentary nature of it more, wanting to seek out existing works, existing photographers and read about the events that were taking place at the time they were taken. I don't attribute this drive solely to myself. My friends within the photography community have greatly influenced my desire to know more about such photographers and the times and environments they lived in, from politics to war, socio-economic trends and fashion statements, to the colours, tones and styles of composition that made their own work truly unique.

I hope that in fifty years, I'll be able to look back on my own photographs and see something like this in my own work.