Shooting on the Streets

You might know that at the moment I am working on a portrait project that involves photographing people on the street. When I was in Birmingham I found this group of musicians entertaining shoppers and could not just walk past.

There is a lot of energy in this image, particularly for the chap playing the accordion - with his bright red jeans that match his instrument.

Since shooting the streets digitally, I have now taken to using the Hassleblad to get portraits. A camera which gets many peculiar looks when I'm out shooting with it but also a good conversation starter. Unfortunately the turn around for the images will take longer but it will be well worth the wait when we get to see what they have come out like.

Movement

I thought I'd try something new today and use slow-ish shutter speeds in daylight. I've not done it before. I set my ISO to 100 and my shutter speeds varied between 10/1 and 6/1 with an average aperture of 9.

A very busy shot, this was one of the first I took. I don't like the angle, looking across however I do like how many people there are and the variety as some people move and others don't.

This image is much quieter than the previous, and most of the activity takes place on the right hand frame. I should have cropped this image a bit further to remove the exits of the shops in the background, even though you can only see the floor of them.

This image I think is much less obvious that the blurs are people as they just look like splodges of colour. I'm fond of the the change of texture throughout the floor - I think it keeps the shot interesting.

A busier shot with people flying in at a few directions, even if you can only see a small part of the foot on the right hand side of the shot. 

Out of the four images I prefer the latter two, because of the angle, looking down.

To all of the images I have reduced the saturation before uploading them and increasing the lightness a tiny bit, I do like the effect it has given them, it makes the frames look much colder, silvery almost. 

Tomorrow I'm off photographing a protest in Birmingham - so excited!