It's tough for me to get out on the streets of New York when the temps go into the 90ºF range, and for the past week the heat index has been hovering around 104º. I get stir crazy sitting inside in air- conditioned comfort. So when I saw that the temp was going to be around 88º today, I grabbed my gear and headed into the Big Apple. The air wasn't what I'd call cool, just marginally tolerable. But I needed to be out to give my brain and fingers a workout.
I"ve been working really hard to not shoot from the hip. It's a technique with which I'm really comfortable and for a long time it was my default mode of shooting. In a pinch I'd still do it rather than lose the shot. When I was shooting film with my Leica M6 - 20 years ago - I hardly ever shot without composing the image in the viewfinder. Developing film was simply too much of a pain in the ass to take a chance on losing a shot, but with digital that became much less of an issue. BUT .... I've come full circle in my thinking. I've been getting much better results that require mostly no cropping and are much more consistently in focus. And while before I would try to be as unobtrusive (read sneaky) as possible so as not to invade the scene, now I find I actually wait a half second after raising the camera before I click the shutter, just to see if I can elicit some kind of response. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, just different. Each has their use and place, and being able to shoot both ways is more tools in the arsenal.
Outside the Hog and Heifer on Washington Street in the Meatpacking district:
I"ve been working really hard to not shoot from the hip. It's a technique with which I'm really comfortable and for a long time it was my default mode of shooting. In a pinch I'd still do it rather than lose the shot. When I was shooting film with my Leica M6 - 20 years ago - I hardly ever shot without composing the image in the viewfinder. Developing film was simply too much of a pain in the ass to take a chance on losing a shot, but with digital that became much less of an issue. BUT .... I've come full circle in my thinking. I've been getting much better results that require mostly no cropping and are much more consistently in focus. And while before I would try to be as unobtrusive (read sneaky) as possible so as not to invade the scene, now I find I actually wait a half second after raising the camera before I click the shutter, just to see if I can elicit some kind of response. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, just different. Each has their use and place, and being able to shoot both ways is more tools in the arsenal.
Outside the Hog and Heifer on Washington Street in the Meatpacking district:
On Broadway in SoHo:
No comments:
Post a Comment