Waiting for the Fujinon 14mm Lens

The new Fuji 14mm f2.8 lens is being shipped by Fuji, and deliveries in the New York area are expected to begin next week. I'm looking forward to hitting the streets with it. The full frame equivalent focal length is 21mm, and that was my favorite lens with which to shoot using my Leica M6 (back in the day). The 18mm prime and the 18mm of the zoom lens have been adequate up to now, but have always felt just a little too narrow at the 28mm equivalent. I'm hoping the 14mm lens will give me the flexibility to be able to get in really close, as shooting on the streets of New York often requires, and still leave me space enough around the subjects for minor cropping if necessary.

While I wait out this extremely cold spell, and impatiently anticipate the delivery of the new lens, here's a couple of shots from last week taken from on one of my favorite shooting spots in Manhattan:

 m

Another street face

Way too cold to be out shooting this week. I'm going through street withdrawal. This shot is a leftover from a walk on Canal Street last week. Enjoy.

Street Faces

I don't have any set agenda when I hit the street. Quite often I have no idea until I walk out of Penn Station where I am headed. Could be Chinatown, Little Italy, Tribeca, Chelsea, or someplace in midtown. Some days I look for a particular setting, settle in, and wait for the actors to appear on stage. Then again, some times I roam around looking for interesting situations. Lately, when I'm out shooting, I've been most attracted to street portraits - an interesting face that tells the story of life, a look towards me with some feeling in it ..... if a subject sees me aiming the lens at them, I usually get some kind of response - not always pleasant, but at least honest.

Here's a collection of looks I grabbed over the past few days. You can make up your own stories about them.