Gear and discretion
I have read up a lot of books (well, looked at the pictures!) about street photographers and the craft of capturing a picture that is not posed and natural. A lot of people now use their camera phones to get the shots, but as I do not have a smartphone and find the things intimidating. Then I shall have to use a camera. And there in lays a problem ….
If I go out with my big Nikon camera and lenses, firstly there is the weight of all the gear. Then secondly Its hard to remain anonymous in the streets when you are wielding one of those great cameras around without causing a fuss with someone good exercise in that folie was when I once went photographing the neon lights in Soho, London. The minute I started shooting a local picked up on it and was confronting me aggressively. He demanded my camera, but I never gave it to him and cleared out of there just as his mates were all turning up. A lesson was learned that day.
In pre-digital times al lot of street photographers used more smaller cameras to do the job like the Leica M6, which is a superb little camera of pure quality. I would love one of them or its offspring, but my budget does not stretch that far. Instead I choose to use another tested make of street photography camera called the RICOH GR series. Its made in Japan by parent company Pentax and is a sweet little camera. At a distance my RICOH GR III looks just like a smartphone and nobody gets nervous or twitchy when I hold it up to take the image. You see from what I have learned its not about being furtive and hanging around kids playgrounds with a camera … its more about catching that moment in time of everyday life, without fuss or bother. It is not always easy to do as someone still might object (like the man sitting outside the barbers shop I mentioned in my previous blog entry), so in that instance I put on a friendly face, try to explain myself and give them a business card with my website address on. This normally pacify them. Fingers crossed. So in summing up as a photographer it takes a summing up of whether the picture is worth possibly getting your arrested or having your head kicked in for the fun of it? It boils down to common sense and good judgement, and cardinal rule, never to be broken …. Do not photograph children.
Thank you and talk again soon. x….