Street Photography – Page 2

Category: Street Photography

Friday Night Lights

Just a quick share with you guys since it’s been a while. I was out at the Music Farm this evening to see my wife’s cousin, Jerry Jacobs play. He’s really matured with his musical style and it’s fantastic to see someone grow from a young kid starting out all the way into adulthood with a bunch of musical experience under his belt.

Afterwards, we stumbled upon some skaters in the bus depot and I held an impromptu photo session (as seen above).

I’ve been a busy bee lately and will fill you in on all of the goings on soon. In the meantime, make sure you’re following my Facebook page for the latest sneek peaks into what I’m working on!

Rock on for now, Wally Gator!

Mutts, Music, & More

Today was the 1st 2nd Sunday on King Street for 2012 in Charleston, SC. The weather was perfect for Charleston’s monthly block party. Last time I shot one of these, I decided that I needed to focus on shooting more dogs the next time I go, so today was that next time. Let’s start off with the most interesting dog I saw today, a Toy Australian Shepherd:

Here are some other stand-outs that we saw:

There was also plenty of music courtesy of Shrimp City Slim, Sollie “Puddin” Jenkins, Michael Lindsey, and accordionist Matt Lohan (pictured at the top of this post). Here’s some shots of the musicians on King Street:

Some stores brought their wares out onto the streets…

And restaurants their food…

There were plenty of interesting people from all walks of life enjoying the unseasonably mild weather. It felt more like early fall than early winter.

We had a great Mediterranean lunch at Taziki’s Restaurant, but had to cut our trip a little short with the news that Amy’s cousin gave birth to her daughter over at MUSC. Crystal was the subject of my very first wedding shoot a couple of years ago! Here’s a shot of her with Kegan in the hospital:

Congrats to the proud parents! After we left the hospital, we stopped by my brother-in-law’s house over in James Island to check out his girlfriend’s new chicken coup. While we were there, there was one of those phenomenal Charleston sunsets, and I used my iPhone to capture this shot of the colorful sky through the trees:

Coastal Carolina Fair 2011

Much like last year, the year before that, and for 50 something years before that, the Coastal Carolina Fair has come to Exchange Park in Ladson, SC. Actually, they’re celebrating the 55th year of the fair in the Charleston area this year – that’s over a half-century of fried Kool-Aid (or Oreos, Twinkies, sticks of butter). This year I went with the family, but I still managed to get a bunch of shots of the fun. I also wrote up a similar post last year, so feel free to check that out.

This photo of the taxi cab tourist in NYC won an honorable mention in the Division 1 photography contest! Just thought I’d share that with you in case you aren’t able to check out the art exhibits. If you do go there, please notice (and laugh at) my giant self-portrait that is keeping a half-bearded eye on the exhibit hall. Thanks.

We arrived just before sunset, and I have to say that I was disappointed by the sky this evening. The clouds were perfect for a spectacular southern light show, but just after I took this shot, they vanished and we got one of those shapeless sunsets. Oh well, there’s always next year 😉

I did try to compensate for the lack of definition with a graduated pink Cokin filter that I held in front of my lens. I also tried to get creative with this shot:

Something about this guy in front of the balloons caught my attention. I wonder how many times Old Man Jenkins here had his plans foiled at the old amusement park by some meddling kids before he took a road gig?

The big star of the show for me is always the big Ferris Wheel. I just love the patterns of light and the plethora of angles to capture them. This year I decided to go head on.

Kegan found out that he does not like heights on the skylift.

Here he is, holding on like a trooper:

The kids made good use of their “all you can ride” hand stamps.

I’m pretty sure I’ve taken this same shot of these same ducks every year I go to the fair. As fun as the fair is, it really is very consistent. And by consistent I mean it’s the same dang thing every dang year!

In the petting zoo, I thought I would get all artsy with this close-up of a cow’s head:

But then she did this, and I couldn’t resist:

The fair wouldn’t be the fair without some of that newfangled country music I didn’t grow up listening to. From where I stand, the new country folks basically took all of their cues from 80’s hair metal but got rid of the distortion pedals and added a fiddle. But, there was a huge crowd of people there to see Colt Ford, and I snuck up to the stage to grab a couple of shots and see what all the commotion was about. By the way, the security are always really cool at the fair if you ask to take some shots first!

Good old Colt must be a big deal around here, because even the people not watching the concert were singing along as they walked around the food court in earshot of the show. We started to head to the car when I got taken by surprise by the fireworks show. I really shouldn’t have been surprised, because they do it every night at the fair. It was a pretty good excuse to pull the camera back out.

And with that we hurried to the car so we could wait in traffic. Another successful family trip to the fair. I can’t wait until next year!

4th Annual Worldwide Photo Walk

Scott Kelby has organized the 4th global photowalk this weekend, and this year Charleston had two groups of walkers. After sweating my way in the daytime during last year’s photowalk, I opted for the evening walk led by Eugene Mah.

The group met at the fountain by Charleston’s waterfront park. I swear, I never made it out of the park! While we were setting up to take our group photo, I noticed some dancers practicing in the grass. As soon as the walk started, I walked up to the dancers and asked them if I could take some pictures of them. They were no strangers to the lens, so they were more than helpful models! Taz started out by doing leaps over me as I laid down in the grass:

Natalya was up next. I decided to mount my SB-600 on my tripod to try and illuminate her face as she was jumping. It was not easy trying to time the leaps – I’ve got about a dozen shots of her just before or just after the precipice of her jump. I did get this one though, which is all I needed 😉

While I was rolling around in the grass with a camera to my eye, a familiar face popped up – It was my local photog buddy Marty! He got some great shots of the girls as well.

As Natalya was resting, I made a casual portrait:

The sun was setting, so we moved over to the barrier wall to take advantage of the beautiful sky. Unfortunately there were no clouds, but I think the clear sky definitely influenced my compositions.

The light was quickly fading, I focused on shooting Natalya, while Marty was shooting Taz. We were both using off-camera flashes to light out subjects. I shot most of my shots with a Tokina 11-16mm ultra wide angle lens wide open at f/2.8. Natalya was doing splits (pictured at the top of this post) and stretches on top of the wall that would make a parent squeamish. She was awesome at this!

At this point, Marty and I realized that we spent almost the whole walk in one spot! More like a photo shoot than a walk – so we headed over to the fountain to get some long exposure night-shots of the water.

After that we went to the rendezvous point, a cool bar/grill called The Griffon. While waiting, we decided to shoot the old Chevy parked in front of the gelato place next to the bar.

I do love to take long exposures of people walking. This group of sailors made this shot:

We met up with some other walkers and went inside the Griffon to tell our war stories and watch the last half of Clemson’s trouncing of Virginia Tech. I shot the table next to us just because I had the shooting bug in me and found it hard to stop.

Marty, Eugene, & I went up on the roof of the parking garage where we were parked and tried to get some last minute shots. I had nothin’. It was late, surprisingly cold, and I was tired. My tiny little travel tripod was not having the wind up on the roof, and the shots I took up there are proof! Instead of making excuses, I made my way home 🙂

You can check out the full set of shots I made on my Flickr set. Also check out Marty’s set while you’re over there! Chuck Boyd was also on hand as were many members of his 21st Century Photography Group.

Which One: King Of Pops Umbrella

Chase Jarvis has a bit that he does on his blog where he asks his readers to pick from two alternate versions of shots he’s made and explain why you like one over the other. Here’s an example of his latest one. I thought I’d try it out here with two shots taken within seconds of each other. They are also shown in the order they were made in. I shot these with my Nikon Coolpix P7000 at the 2011 Carolina Green Fair this past Sunday in Marion Square. The subject is the iconic King of Pops rainbow umbrella.

Shot #1

Shot #2

So which one do you like, shot #1 or shot #2? Why? Sound off here in the comments, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

A Day In NYC With A Nikon P7000

Last weekend I was in New York to catch the Archers of Loaf reunion shows, and on that Saturday, I had a few hours to kill before meeting up with my friends to go to the show. I had just received a new camera, the Nikon P7000, and really wanted to familiarize myself with the camera during this trip. Instead of doing a typical review of how the camera works (you can read those here and here), I figured I would just show you what I made with them and let you decide if you like the camera by what it’s possible of. If you’ve been reading my blog here, you know the kind of photography I make and you can see how well these photos stand up to my other work.

I started out in Astoria (which is a neighborhood in Queens for those of you who aren’t familiar) and walked a couple of blocks over to the train station.

I love public transportation in New York. During the day you don’t need to wait long for a train – who needs schedules?

After about 10 minutes, I arrived at the Fifth Ave./ 59th St. station.

I emerged from the subway to the sights and sounds I lived in for so many years in a past life.

My first stop was the cube Apple Store, which was completely covered with boards because it is under renovations – Not a problem, it makes for a more interesting atypical photo! Because it’s such a busy scene, the lines in the crosswalk come in handy as an element to draw your attention to the construction site in the center of this shot:

Just outside of the Apple cube was a brass band which was drawing quite a crowd. I snuck in from the street side and got in close – you can see my bald-headed reflection in the horn!

I was getting hungry and thirsty and I knew exactly what I wanted: A dirty-water dog. I didn’t have to walk far into Central Park to find a cart and a bench to sit on.

As I sat and enjoyed my mystery meat on a bun, I started to compose the scenes around me. Right across the way was a guitarist and girl eating her lunch. While the guitarist was interesting, I couldn’t get a good shot of the girl that was flattering because she was munching on her food the whole time. I figured I’d drag the shutter a little to get a pedestrian walking by and capture the motion. This was the result:

To the right was a pretty lady getting her portrait made:

I ventured further into the park, past the zoo, and through this tunnel to see what moments I could capture.

Isolating a person in a scene is a lot harder than you can imagine on a perfect Saturday afternoon in the park. I found this girl hanging out on the rocks – she wasn’t alone though. There were 8 other people on the same rock, but I found this angle to single her out:

As I walked further into the park, I started to hear live amplified music. I followed my ears until I came upon the Summer Stage. I walked in just in time to catch a set from Fitz & The Tantrums!

Fitz & The Tantrums at Central Park 2011

Boy, did that put me in a good mood! By the end of their set, there was nothing but smiles in the crowd. I had food in my belly, a song in my head, and a new camera to break in. You couldn’t ask for a better place in the world to be at that moment. I ventured back out into the park and stumbled upon some people doing the Tango in the middle of the path. I knew it was the Tango, because someone was kind enough to spell it out for me on the ground.

I decided to climb some rocks and came across this fantastic view – I fell to my stomach and quickly shot this as there was a clear people-less view!

I looked around and there were so many couples – it was quite romantic. I like this scene because there is a couple on the left, as well as a single guy looking over at a single woman. When coupled with the photo that follows it, there is a story of longing going on.

I really started to focus on couples for a while. This couple seems pretty focused on something off camera:

Here’s another couple checking out some photos on the girl’s camera:

It was sunny out for most of the day, and I was very happy to have an optical viewfinder on this compact camera – it’s a lot easier to see in bright conditions than the LCD screen. Speaking of the screen – It’s the same size as my D90’s screen! It’s bright and defined, and Nikon was kind enough to let you clear all of the visible data so you can shoot and view your photos without any clutter.

This couple eventually asked me to take a photo of them with their camera as well:

As I said earlier, I try to isolate my subjects, but in this photo you can see just how close people really are to each other:

It was time to head downtown to meet up with my friends. I put on my tourist hat and started taking shots of the buildings.

I absolutely love this action of this shot of a couple exiting F.A.O. Schwartz:

All of the shots I took in this series were made using the camera’s finest jpeg setting. I could shoot in RAW, but for purpose of this camera, which for me is primarily street and casual photography, the jpegs look downright amazing right out of the camera. I like to know that if I find myself in a situation where I know I will decide to do some extreme photo editing when I get back to my computer, I can switch to RAW. I did do some light editing in Lightroom on these, such as black & white conversions, cropping, & straightening, and tweaking of brightness & contrast.

I want to briefly touch on the features of the camera that stick out for me so far. If you’re a Nikon shooter, you should be pretty comfortable with the menu structure. However, I do find it strange how you can conveniently get to important settings using the camera’s quick menu dial, but you can’t get to all of those same settings using the menu button! The separation is a bit confusing. I also wish I could change the direction of the physical dials to mimic the way I have my D90 set up. I haven’t taken advantage of the User mode presets yet, but I think they’re a great idea. I really wish the exposure compensation dial was a dedicated ISO setting dial like the Canon G12 sports – it is a setting I find I’m constantly getting into. In fact, I had my quick menu set to the ISO function 90% of the time. I know it sounds silly, but I love that it has standard strap connectors so that I can use my favorite camera strap, the Domke Gripper. A good strap is something you shouldn’t overlook for your camera – if you you’re not comfortable carrying it, you’re less likely to do so!

This shot of a man on his phone is one of my favorite shots of the day – I walked up and was immediately drawn to the geometry of it all. I love the lines of the steps leading to the man and the pots and the trees at the top that balance it all.

I also love this simple street corner by the world famous Carnegie Deli. It’s not too busy and the tone made for a great black & white photo.

In conclusion, I friggin’ love this camera. It’s capable of taking very high quality shots in a small package. During this trip, I didn’t miss lugging around my DSLR and a bag full of glass. I was able to get great shots and look inconspicuous while doing it, which for street photography is a huge plus.

I took a lot of photos that day – you can see the full set on Flickr.

I Love NY

I spent this past weekend catching up with my best friends and former schoolmates in New York. While Times Square and Grand Central Station are not my favorite places in NYC, they are the places I spent a lot of time in while working at MTV and going to school in the MetLife building before that.

My buddy has this amazing idea for a reality show based around a very unique guy’s life and the people around him. The backdrop is Manhattan and while I was visiting he had to capture some b-roll of some of NY’s more well known sights. I decided to tag along and shoot some stills in these locations.

It’s hard to find a different or new way to shoot a place that literally tens of millions of people have photographed before. My attitude is to just be myself. I looked at the scene and thought of how I would like to arrange the elements from the vantage points I could reach. I also looked for moments such as this cab driver grabbing a snapshot:

Taxi cabs are to NYC as gnats are to Charleston, and I shot this scene of a taxi stand next to Grand Central Station to capture the movement of them.

I moved behind the stand a few feet after I noticed the homeless man in the shot to the left of the stand. I wanted to get a shot of him while people walked past him. The idea was inspired this shot by David duChemin. I like the idea of the forgotten soul who’s like a fixed installment of a given NY scene.

I had to catch a train back to meet up with another friend and I know that the transit authority is not keen on people taking photos in the subways, but I managed to grab this shot with my iPhone while waiting for the train back to Astoria:

Food Truck Rodeo!

We were sitting around eating brunch at IHOP, which lets face it – the food is barely edible, when the discussion of the Food Truck Rodeo came up. Darn it, why didn’t we think of that before we sat down to our egg substitute and Go-Gurt topped excuse for a meal? One of the vendors at the Rodeo was Happy Camper Snoballs, who the kids & I remembered from Kulture Klash 7. We could at the very least stop by the event for some sweet cold goodness as dessert!

We couldn’t believe how many people showed up at Mixson community development in the Park Circle area of North Charleston. Parking was scarce, but the walk was well worth the treats that lay ahead. We hopped on line to grab some fruit infused snowy heaven in a Chinese take-out container.

While on line, we saw local photog Jonathan Stout taking some video of the lines. He’s got a cool art show coming up called “The 3 Amigos Ride Again, For the First Time” with Meta Sapient & Proton Factories at Local Coffee Bar on May 13th.

There was live music, dogs, drinking, and food – a regular party going on! Afterwards we headed over to the North Charleston Arts Festival, which by comparison was like going to a church fair (probably because religious services were letting out in the convention center at the time we arrived). There was some great photography on display by the likes of Kathy Hare and Leah Sparks (as well as a lot of others) at the Arts Festival though. I bet if they had the Food Truck Rodeo at the Convention Center, it would have been an interesting mix of people 😉

As usual, you can check out my Flickr Stream for all of the photos I took today. Many of the photos in this post made heavy usage of the Tonal Contrast filter effect in Nik’s Color Efex Pro because I felt like making gritty high dynamic range style photos today.

Brewvival 2011 Photo Essay

When I first arrived at the old Navy Base in North Charleston on Saturday for the second annual Brewvival, I felt a similar feeling as when I walked through the doors at CupcakeCamp. Elation. As a fan of real beer, not that swill most people pass off as beer at sports bars and chain restaurants, I was in heaven. Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by real honest-to-goodness beer!

After I pinched myself a few times, I remembered that I had a job to do. I had to captured the day in photos. Where to start? Well, there was the huge growing line of attendees awaiting for the 12 o’clock hour to strike so they could start the party. I walked to the front of the line and met this group of folks who had arrived an hour early to be the first to enjoy the heady goodness that was to be dispensed throughout the day.

I realized I had a few minutes to check out the grounds before they were filled with festival goers. I walked around taking in the sights of each booth.

Soon, the “gates” opened and some of the happiest people on earth were welcomed with a program and a beer glass as they entered the festival.

And so it began. People lined up at the booths and started sniffing, tasting, and in some cases, even licking their beer!

The organization of the festival was brilliant. Lines moved quickly, each brewer was organized in alphabetical order, and everyone had a list of what each brewer had to offer so there was little doubt as to where you could get the beer you wanted to try.

Soon after the gates opened, the rock began with the sounds of Gaslight Street (featured in the photo at the top of this post). Now I was getting into my groove – I love beer, photography, and rock n’ roll (not in any particular order).

I started to get into it and got in close on the instruments…

I decided to head back into the crowd for more shots of ~~beard~~ beer drinking!

It was lunch time, which I spent inside of Coast Brewery’s facility and enjoyed some amazing home-made food that was prepared for the vendors and brewers. While I was in there, I decided to take some shots of the inner workings of the brewery.

After I was done inside Coast, I headed back outside to the festival with an idea for a shot. I wanted to get the darkest beer I could find and fill one of the Brewvival beer glasses and get a shot of the band behind it. I set the aperture as small as I could to get the most depth of field (and showcase the plethora of dirt on my camera’s sensor). I believe it captures the essence of the day. The shot up top is my favorite, and here is an alternate of the same shot in the key of G:

The beer I used was Palmetto Brewing’s Espresso Porter, which was amazing to say the least (I had to drink it because I wasn’t about to waste it). I also checked out some of the food vendors. We had D’Allesandro’s Pizza, Ted’s Butcher Block, Roti Rolls, as well as others on hand to keep the drinkers paced and satisfied.

Next up on the stage was the Garage Cuban Band, who played a trippy Latin-flavored soulful sound that was perfect for the occasion.

Phew – this is a long post, and I’m still going! After checking out a riveting game of bean-bag toss, I met up with some Twitter Friends.

It’s @JasonCZ & @SkimTheOcean

I tried to explain to Jason the art of being a creep with a camera at an event such as this. Sometimes the shot you want is of people off their guard, such as these:

When people know they are being photographed, the tend to step out of their natural character and when you combine that with beer, it may look something like this:

As the day went on, people came out of their shells and it was much easier to approach them for candid shots. Here are some of my favorites:

Let’s not forget the unsung heroes of the day. I’m talking about the designated drivers who, donning their straight-edge X’s on their hands, sacrificed partaking in the alcohol bevicide for the good of their fellow man.

Guess what time it is? It’s banjo picking, fiddle sticking, foot stomping time! Fire up the Dukes of Hazard car chase scene soundtrack and check out these shots of the SC Broadcasters!

Right about now, the people started to get the itch and some dancing ensued.

The day was winding down, and somebody with temporary tattoos on his head was getting his skull licked, so I took that as my cue to wrap up my photo shoot.

I had a blast, and I can’t wait until next year’s event. Until then, I raise my glass to the Brewvival crew and Coast Brewing for putting on a spectacular festival. Cheers! I leave you with this picture of this guy looking awesome.

Check out the whole set of 247 photos on my Flickr!

Second Sunday On King St.

Late last year, the city of Charleston decided after the success of the “Do the Charleston” festival to regularly close King Street to traffic on the second Sunday of each month so that the pedestrians could take over (you can read more about the origins here). Today I was finally able to bring the family for an afternoon downtown and also to do some street photography.

The diptych above was a group of people watchers in Ye Ole Fashioned Ice Cream and Sandwich Cafe. They were having a blast commenting on what everyone was wearing, and I told them I was turning the camera on them next!

1/100th of a sec | f/4.5 | 62mm | ISO 200

It didn’t take long for me to start looking for some decent light and interesting people to shoot. It was mid-day, so the light was harsh and three quarters of the street was in shadow. I found that the slivers of light between buildings was a great side-light opportunity and looked for opportunities to use it.

I also looked for people who were doing just ordinary things, like eating some lunch…

…or drinking some coffee…

…or talking on the phone…

…or walking their dog…

…or flipping me the bird while double-fisting some beverages…

…or looking as happy as can be…

…or just as pretty as can be.

I was hoping to get a lot of shots of people dressed up as characters from the “Where’s Waldo” series as there was an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people dressed like Waldo in one place (more info on that here). Unfortunately, they fell quite short of the record. I did grab a shot of these two festive Wandas:

As with any outdoor Low Country event, the dogs were out en masse. I think the next time I attend one of these Second Sundays I’m gonna focus on capturing the dogs – there were so many awesome dogs out.

Getting down to the dog’s perspective makes for an interesting composition:

These dogs looked really excited to be out and about:

I also made some black & white shots – I knew when I shot this one that it would be perfect as a monotone image – the contrast and negative space are just shouting to be devoid of any distracting colors.

All in all, I had a blast and cant wait to do it again. I have a hefty set of photos on my Flickr stream if you want to see some of the other shots I made today. Street photography is a fun and exciting way to exercise your creative mind, and you end up meeting interesting people in the process.

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