The Vibe

On streets, camera in one hand, I feel free, free to observe and explore photography. Streets are my studio.

There is this three dimensional space changing every second around, above and below me. Everything I can capture in my camera’s two dimensional frame appears in glimpse and disappears forever. Everything is ephemeral. I am free where to position my lens and when to press the shutter to capture an image, frozen in time and space. I capture one frame at a time, but by doing so I loose trillions of other possibilities instantly. The captured image becomes history, other images untaken are lost forever. By not knowing what exactly will happen moment to moment is key to my endless freedom of artistic expression.

Sydney downtown is never boring. The light rail was introduced in 2020. After the pandemic ended office workers started to return to offices. Streets are abuzz with people at any hour. There are more open places for pedestrians, more cafes, and excellent food joints.  

From my home in North Shore I usually take a train or metro to downtown. The time I leave home depends on the season and weather. Those factors, I cheerfully call weather gods, will have direct effect on light. I don’t plan for photo walks. I pretty much stroll randomly on streets and alleys.

On the train I check the city weather using my cell phone’s Weather application. As the train approaches the city before it enters the underground tunnel over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I check skies from the window. I set the AUTO ISO Minimum Shutter Speed parameter based on available light. On a bright day I can go down as much as 1/250s to be able to capture subjects sharp. On overcast days 1/200 should suffice.  

Once I get out of the station I pull my handheld Ricoh GR camera from its holster. I check the current settings button.  There are 3 custom settings I programmed for quick access; they are u1, u2, and u3. My favourite is u1 which is based on the positive film setting, u2 is Kodachrome film setting, u3 is night photography setting. 

Before I pick a location, I check the vibe first. I study how people are moving and what they are doing. I check the direction of light, shades, reflections, layers, leading lines, and the background behind subjects. 

I relax and start slowly. I make couple of test shots first. On a good day, with favourable conditions I will gain momentum. On a bad day I will return home empty handed. But that is the nature of street photography, unpredictability is given.

Lunch Break

In autumn, office workers are having a lunch break in the Sydney CBD. I like the yellow colour palette, giant Corinthian columns. I can see the play, to other eyes it may look like a banal reality.

Next time you see cockatoos in a cloudy day

On a wire next to each other

Casually accompanied by one another

Pay attention to their communion

Being themselves for a short while

Feeling the warmth of strangers

Shoulder to shoulder

Strangers no more

Street Photography

 What is Street Photography? 

Street photography, a genre of photography that records everyday life in a public place. The very publicness of the setting enables the photographer to take candid pictures of strangers, often without their knowledge. - Google -

This is a pretty accurate description. Yet street photographers can stretch these boundaries a bit.

For me a picture taken on a public setting does not have to have people in it but it must have a meaningful story to tell from photographer’s point of view.

Take this picture as an example. 

On the surface it is an ordinary picture. In the background a liner docked in the Sydney Harbour, and in the front the roof of the oldest cottage the colonists built two centuries ago.

There is a deeper story than what it tells me. The humans are not visible but trapped in their little compartments in the liner. Just like the tiles on the roof their collective story is what unifies them. They may have individual stories and lives. But from this distance they lost their individuality. Their story is about a journey, today made under favourable circumstances, but two hundred odd years ago as convicts transported inhumanly under the deck of a ship.

From distant climes, o'er wide-spread seas, we come, 
Though not with much éclat or beat of drum,
True patriots all: for, be it understood:
We left our country for our country's good.

George Barrington - an Irish pickpocket, a First Fleet convict.