Street photography with the Fuji X series cameras.

John's Rock Shop

One of the things I really love about the Fuji X system of cameras are their size, or rather, lack of it. The camera bodies are tiny and make a relatively small Nikon D90 look absolutely huge, not to mention heavy. Couple that with amazing image quality, near silent operation and what's not to like. I take my Fuji X100 and X-T1 with me everywhere, something I just wouldn't consider with my Nikon D4 or D3s. What this means for me is that I'm always ready to whisk out a camera and indulge in a bit of street photography.... I absolutely love street photography. That not knowing exactly what you're going to stumble across and what you'll be able to capture is positively infectious, not to mention incredibly important from a Socio-historical point of view. Let me explain what I mean by that last point. How many times have you taken an image only to look at it and think 'That's pretty average', file it away on some portable hard drive only to stumble across it years later and think 'crikey, I love this image. Look at the clothes, remember that shop, it's gone now'. Memories come flooding back and more than that, you've recorded a moment in time that can tell a story, paint a picture that a viewer or historian may find of great value. Street photographers have captured some of the most important and powerful images in the history of the medium and it's relatively easy for you to get involved too. Just step out the door and look for interesting places and people. You'll being doing your bit to help document the Social history in the local area, and like me I'm sure you'll become hooked, always on the lookout for your next street photography fix. I have to admit that at first I found it quite difficult to get up quite close to people and point a camera their way, for fear of a confrontation. Thankfully this hasn't happened as of yet and just remember, as long as you are shooting on public property there is nothing legally to stop you snapping away. Just use a bit of common sense though, photographing at a swimming pool or beach with lots of kids running about is likely to cause some unwanted attention. That said, if Martin Parr had shied away from such photo opportunities then we wouldn't have the brilliant books 'The Last Resort and The Real World'.   http://www.martinparr.com/books/  

I have to say that I find I edit my street images in a completely different way to that of my other work, be it Wedding or Landscape photography. I try to have a bit of fun with it, saturating colour or upping contrast to emphasis place and detail, often ending up with a slightly hyper realistic look which can be rather effective if used correctly. I think the first image in this post illustrates this point nicely. 'John's Rock Shop' is a busy little place during the Summer season in Wells-Next-The-Sea. Chocked full of vivid day glow coloured rock, neon signs and fluorescent strip lights, it's a visual feast to the eye. As a kid I used to look into this type of shop window in Skegness, giggling at the full English breakfast fashioned from rock sitting on a paper plate covered in cellophane. Thirty years on and here is the same shop, (in spirit at least) captured the way I always remembered it, and explosion of colour.

The Three Amigos

      

There is nothing better that sitting on a bench in the sun by the sea. Gulls glide effortlessly overhead, boat masts flap lazily in the warm breeze and the sea laps gently against the pebble beach. What a great place to snooze, but I have to say i've never seen three people spark out in such a manner as depicted in the picture above. I was able to kneel just a few feet in front of them, compose the shot, trip the shutter and walk away without any reaction from any of the three. I love the way they are sitting, especially the guy on the right. 

The Pose

    

What a pose. It's as though I'd asked him to stand arm on railing looking out across the Quay stick in hand. The lighting was incredibly harsh, the shadows deep, but the Fuji X-T1 handled the conditions extremely well. I was shooting Raw and fine Jpeg with Jpeg set to Astia. Maybe Velvia would've been the better choice given the bright conditions but with a bit of tweaking through the App Snapseed i'm more than happy with the colour rendition from the Astia simulation. 

One of the things I absolutely love with the new X-T1 is its Wi-fi ability. As soon as I've taken an image I can download it onto my tablet, edit it and upload the finished image to one of the many social media sites. It really is seamless and works a treat. Also being able to control the camera from your phone/tablet means you can be super stealthy and capture truly natural portraits without the 'target' being any the wiser.  

Say cheese

While it's seen as a bit of a cliché, taking photos of people taking photos of people can still be rather fun, especially when it tells its own little story, maybe showing a family holiday. When I shoot at a wedding I will always scan the frame for unwanted clutter or possible trees protruding from someone's head, but with street photography I actually leave things as they are or maybe try to include such elements. It can inject a bit of humour into a fairly mundane image such as in the example above, the aerial sticking out from the top of this photographers head while the lady is trying to act naturally adds a bit of humour.

The Last Day

     

And what better way to end a fabulous week by the sea than with a bit of crab fishing. As the sun sets on another beautiful day a family vacation comes to an end, the crabs are released back from whence they came ready for the cycle to start all over again. But look back on images such as these in forty years time and even places like Wells which remain relatively timeless will begin to show their age. The boats and the Quay may look roughly the same, but fashions will, in all likelihood be completely different and crabbing may not be viewed as socially acceptable as it is now. Who knows? But recording such events and scenes as they happen lets future generations glimpse the past, laugh at the fashion, get a feeling for how people used to live and have fun. And candid images captured by 'a bloke with a camera' can end up becoming some of  the most powerful, valuable and important images of all.