A Thinking Street Photography Site
Again, in London.
The Hong Kong MTR in London.
Ooh.
Aah.
Kowloon is in London.
Heroic-looking man. There’re 5 people here but the eyes are drawn to a specific person.
The folks at Hamleys.
Along Oxford Street.
Waiting man.
Thanks for reading!
Camera: Canon 600D
Lens: Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM
I’m a bit of a maximizer (as opposed to a satisficer) when it comes to choosing/doing things.
I try to find out all there is to know before making a decision.
When it comes to execution, I try to go through the various steps in my mind in order to get everything right beforehand.
Which is why zone focusing and street photography is such a re-creation for me.
We’re working with a circumference of acceptability.
Is good enough good enough? There’s motion blur here which adds to the sense of movement.
I was close enough, but it doesn’t mean I could see clearly.
And if we don’t always notice everything around us, why should we demand a photography that sees everything accurately and in sharp focus?
On the other hand, how much loosening up can one do before one loses discipline?
There’s a spectrum here, between trying to get everything clinically right and hence losing the moment and operating without some sort of discipline, as if one is holding a camera for the first time.
Sometimes, good enough is good enough in street photography.
Try to get everything right and one might lose the “street”.
There’s that tendency to overthink and hence lose the art.
On the other hand, one must possess discipline in order to lose it.
So my job is to learn everything I can, and then forget all I have learnt.
Imperfection is an art in itself.
And so is perfection.
And perhaps art is about improvising and about knowing how to move back and forth between perfection and imperfection.
Thanks for reading.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Summicron 50mm Type II
Film: Ilford XP 2
I suppose these are not the most technically accomplished of photographs.
Yet there are times when technicality takes a backseat – you could have a technically perfect photograph that is meaningless.
Here, we’re reminded of how street photography is an art that requires a seat-of-the-pants attitude. Sometimes it’s about serendipity and stealth and being “in the zone”.
There’s not much to say about the composition in the above photograph.
Perhaps I’m forgiving myself too much, yet the imperfection says something of the constraints of the art in the particular environment.
I simply can’t really walk around and compose my shots in a train cabin as it would attract too much attention.
In any case, the cabin was crowded. Most of these people were about 1-2 metres away from me.
This person saw me without really registering what I was doing and turned away.
This person was too engrossed in his reading to notice.
It’s amazing how we switch off when we’re commuting.
Yet I find these moments, moments when we’re lost in our thoughts, the most poignant of all.
I didn’t think the above would work at first. I was thinking to myself at that moment that this was a wasted exposure.
I’m biased, of course, but now I think I’d rather like the artlessness of the composition.
Again, not perfect. It’s not sharp enough.
At times like this, I take comfort in Henri Cartier-Bresson’s statement that “people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing” (The Mind’s Eye, p. 38).
Thanks for coming by today.
Waiting
Waiting, for our train to stop or to start
a line, we want our clockwork poetry.
We want spreadsheets to write a smile
on a Chinese businessman’s face.
Surely there is a law against waiting too long:
we bow to the lesser gods.
On the station concourse, we exchange life
too quickly for a message on our phones.
Like me, you are a man limping
without a watch and a tie.
We need assurances of fortune cookies
out of the smelting factory of our days.
Sometimes I am tired like a tourist
eating popcorn in an amusement park.
We are snails out of a shell of countries –
can there be a Spirit like water from a stone?
My wallet is a short talisman against the hour –
is there a book waiting to be read?
Poem and photograph previously featured in Friends Newsletter. Hong Kong: Friends of the Art Museum, CUHK. Jan 2013 Issue.
Hong Kong Lucida 