Narrow your horizons

Here's a little thought-experiment for you to start with.  Apart from "family", how many of your "serious" photos have you taken within half a mile of your home?  Roughly, in percentage terms...

I'll wager it is a low number.  A very low number, unless you have a home studio or the like.  Most of us shoot while out and about, either because we have gone out to take photos, or have taken photos while we are out (there is a significant difference, but more of that another day).  The interesting thing about this thought experiment is that it doesn't matter where you live - you could be in the centre of the most fascinating metropolis on the planet, you could open your front door onto the Grand Canal in Venice, or you could be in the midst of the moors - habituation gets you every time.

Our Wikipedia friends define habituation as "...a form of learning in which an organism decreases or ceases to respond to a stimulus after repeated presentations".  You can't fight it - it happens to us all.   It is the same phenomenon that partly drives addictions - that quest for an ever-greater "high", whether that be an armful of heroin or a new camera (Gear Acquisition Syndrome or "GAS" is real, and causes considerable wallet pain.) In context of where we live, we stop seeing our immediate environs and treat them as part of our life furniture.

So here's thought experiment number 2.  How often do you actually walk out past the end of your drive or your front gate?  Many of us - though admittedly not all - can actually say seldom, because we get into the car parked on said drive and motor off to our destination.  It's convenient, easy and in many respects it isolates and insulates us from our immediate surroundings - we only ever see the next road and the road after that through our windscreens, never through our viewfinders.  Try this - how far away from home are you after five minutes behind the wheel of your car?  Two miles?  Three?  How long would it take you to walk the same distance?  Half an hour?  An hour?  The modern car is a wonderous thing, but like many other "advances" it detracts from our perception of the world immediately around us.

End of the road...

I recently spent a week or so unable to drive, following some minor surgery.  I was restricted to sitting at home, or going out for a walk with a camera; the latter won.  I have lived in the same area for going on 15 years now, but with a fresh eye and a narrowed horizon I saw more in that week than I have in the seven hundred and fifty-odd that preceded it.

My operation also forced a double-whammy on me.  It was to my right shoulder, so I could neither carry any great weight, nor hold a heavy camera to my face for any length of time.  I was thus forced by circumstance to "travel light".  In order to do so I chose to use a Fujifilm X-M1 mounted with a Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens.  Even with a handgrip and a thumb-rest attached, this combination tips the scales at very little more than 500 of those modern gram things.  With an APS-C sensor in a tiny body, Fuji have reduced functionality from their more upmarket models but not by any means the quality of output.  Equally, the 27mm, with a focal length equivalent of a very useful 40-41mm is not only a good match but an under-rated and handy lens reminiscent of the 40mm Summicron from Leica and the 40mm Nokton from Voigtlander.  The lens and body combined brings back happy memories of using an Olympus Trip - and that is praise indeed.

The Whovians will enjoy this one:

...and this

I have bought an X-M1 twice, as it happens.  First of all as a backup to my X-E1 then when I acquired an X-T1 and replaced the X-E1 with an X-Pro1 three X mount bodies seemed a little extravagant, so I sold it on.  Then more recently I realised that a small, lightweight but capable backup to whichever of the X-Pro and X-T I was carrying as my main kit did in fact make sense, so...

What has surprised me - although it shouldn't if I had thought about it - is what a good little setup this is for street photography.  The 55.5 degree angle of view is ideal for urban action and set to manual focus, zone-focussed to 7-10 feet at f8 or thereabouts, the X-M1 and 27mm combination is a good 'un.  For years I have used Leica M and LTM for such endeavors, with a focal length between 35 and 50mm, ISO 400 film and Sunny-16 as my guide and I am happy to say that I can use the Fuji in the same basic way to good effect.

Pardon?

One advantage that I hadn't expected comes in the form of the "fly by wire" focussing of the 27mm.  Not only can I opt to have it turn the same way as my Leicas, but I have "discovered" (durr...) that turning the camera off and on does not effect the focal distance set; this is a boon to someone like me who drops the camera back into a bag and out of sight every so often.  Where it loses out is that I can't adjust focus by feel as I could with my Leicas before I brought them to my eye,  particularly with those lenses with focus tabs like the old 5cm Elmars.

Cast off those earthly underpants...

Anyway, enough of the kit chat.  The key point of today's "sermon" is that we are frequently exhorted to "broaden our horizons", seek new life and new civilisations (sorry, couldn't resist) and get out there to take our photos. The reality is that sometimes, just sometimes, it can give you more of a creative kick to narrow those horizons down to just the places you can easily walk to from home, with one small, lightweight camera and a single focal length lens.

Try it - you may be surprised...

Hell, no, we won't logo...

I was buying a new car recently and I was asked if I wanted it "debadged". I'm aware of this "service", of course - a bit like having your hair cut or liposuction it is one of the few services in which you pay more to walk away with less - but it has always slightly mystified me. I have no particular desire to hide the model of car I am buying, so why bother? The salesman smiled. "Very well Sir", he said. and was going to leave it at that.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what sort of customer said yes. His answer was an interesting object lesson in reverse psychology. It seems that debadging is most popular with those buying base models. They opt for it so that they do not have anything on the back of their cars that declares they have gone for the cheaper option. The irony is, the salesman continued, that it is for the most part only those buying base models who choose to debadge - those who can afford the top of the range have no issue in "flaunting it". Thus, he pointed out with a certain degree of schadenfreude, if you see a debadged car, it is almost by definition equipped with cloth seats, small wheels and a socially inept owner.

This led me to thinking. One of the stranger sub-plots in the world of Leica is the desire to eliminate the red dot; remove from the front of the camera that which proclaims most loudly that you are using a high-end piece of photographic equipment. There are regular threads on fora seeking views on the best tape to use, or the best means to eliminate not just the dot but also the white lettering. Gaffer, duck, duct, insulating, etc - all have their adherents (sorry!).

So what is going through these people's minds? The most oft-expressed desire is to make the camera more "stealthy"; to present a more ninja-like face to the world. The theory goes that the red dot catches the eye and the "decisive moment" is lost.

Bollocks.

What catches people's eye is a 160-lb bloke dressing like Action Man night-stalker, making sudden movements as if he has mallards in his underpants and waving a camera in their direction. The red dot, or lack of it, has no bearing in this situation.

Let's move on to justification #2 - "I don't want to attract the attention of thieves". In this case our taper has moved to a specific class of people by whom he doesn't want to be noticed. That red dot just SCREAMS money, doesn't it?

Bollocks (again).

The average street thief is a) opportunist b) unaware of the Leica price list c) not choosy. A camera is a camera. The thought of someone initiating a mugging and then saying - "oh sorry, mate, didn't realise that was a Niktax 3000P - thought it was the far more valuable 30xls. Sorry to bother you, mind how you go..." - is not really credible, is it? A camera is a camera - it is something you have, that they do not, and something that they can sell for money. It's that simple.

Red, and proud of it...

Sooo... Justification #3 - "I don't want to be seen using an expensive camera to shoot poor people." ...I love this one. Anyone who follows this philosophy really shouldn't be allowed out on their own. Let's turn it on it's head - a great way to test any argument - "I only want to be seen shooting poor people with a cheap camera." - Well, let me put it this way; if I were pushing a Lidl trolley along the embankment, dragging my cardboard after me and swigging from a meths bottle and two photographers approached, one with a cheap disposable, and the other with an M9, I know which is more likely to catch my good side - that's the one without the suppurating sores and alopecia. If this is truly an issue to you, just stick to shooting the sort of still-lifes and landscapes so beloved of Amateur Photographer - nice, safe, anodyne and completely non-confrontational.

...and that brings me neatly on to justification #4...

Aesthetics.

Yes, aesthetics matter. And to some extent, this is the one justification with which I have some sympathy. Here's my confession - I don't like logos. If a company would like to pay me for advertising their product, I will gladly do so, but I am neither famous nor high profile enough to be sponsored, so that isn't going to happen.

I had a splendid dispute with a car salesman (yes, another one) a few years ago. I was buying a Land Rover Discovery; the Series II model that still had the spare wheel on the back door. Now, I object to advertising a dealership, so asked politely for a plain spare wheel cover. Not only was this request refused (I later bought one myself) but also my request for no cover at all; I was told that the Sales Director would not allow a car to be driven off their forecourt without a suitably tacky cover shouting their name.

In the event, and having nearly cancelled my order, I came to what I saw as a suitable compromise; I collected the car, complete with stencilled cover, drove it all of one yard across the forecourt, got out and removed the offending article, before frisbeeing it up on to the showroom roof. It described a graceful arc, and settled somewhere highly visible but inconvenient. The salesman smiled - his responsibility was discharged - and my vehicle was no longer a 4x4 billboard.

But that's one thing, and easily dealt with. I would never dream of buying an article of clothing that proclaimed "Nike" or "O'Neill", or any of a number of other brand names. I may be a Bill, but I am not a board. However, I have never let a logo stand in the way of ownership either. I have never bothered about having "Olympus" or "Leica" on a pentaprism, and I am not about to start now. It is an integral part of the design, an integral part of the product. Nobody removes the Spirit of Ecstacy from a Rolls Royce, so why worry about that little red dot?

For those to whom it really matters, there is one simple alternative - buy a Leica old enough not to have the dot - suddenly all your problems are solved. Ok, it won't be digital, but for many who seem to care about such ephemeral matters, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't really matter - it's all about appearances. After all - who actually takes pictures with anything other than a cameraphone these days...?

Bill

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- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

The Invisible Man in the Street

Many who have tried their hand at "street photography" have surely, at one time or another, wished that they could find a Harry Potter-esque invisibility cloak at their local photo dealer, nestled in alongside the wibbly tripods, card readers and tobacco grad starburst filters. I say "many" rather than "anyone" because there are of course those who go out of their way to influence the scene before them. Like an old-school, tweed-suited wedding photographer, they will not be happy until they have stage-managed the people in shot, getting them to pose and smile. They are probably the same people who, as children, endlessly rearranged their Airfix 1/72nd scale commando platoon in height order by hat size. This type of invasive approach is "portraiture" in my view, not "street photography".

Those of you with a scientific background ( I know you are out there, I can hear your test-tube bubbling) will understand the "Hawthorne Effect" - a form of reactivity (it says here) whereby subjects improve an aspect of their behaviour that is being measured in direct response to the fact that they are being measured. In photographic terms, this is the equivalent of someone noticing that you are framing them up and pulling their stomach in, either voluntarily or involuntarily as a result, in order to make themselves "look better". In so doing they may very well no longer be as "interesting" as they were in the first place, and indeed may no longer be worth tripping the shutter.

So, in the absence of magic cloaks, what is the answer for the photographer who wants to capture life as it happens, without changing, or being a part of, what's going on? The natural coward has a couple of options - use a long lens (which is great if you are in a hide of some sort shooting wild birds, but is still likely to attract unwelcome attention if spotted in your local high street), or, in the finest tradition of the Wild West, shoot 'em in the back. The latter is not a bad technique per se, but if it is the only approach used it does call into question the photographers' motivation, let alone his ability to look people in the eye. No. Unobtrusive discretion is the keyword... er, words. Cartier-Bresson was a big gawky Frenchman, and he got away with it for years, so surely it can't be that hard.

Can it?

Then there is a whole school of thought that theorises that the size of one's equipment has a major influence on whether or not one is noticed. Whilst this may have some truth in the porn movie industry, it is far less relevant to the budding street snapper than many would like to believe. In all honesty, sticking tape over the red dot on your Leica is more likely to arouse curiosity of the "When did you break your camera?" variety. It does not make you look more "street" - it does make you look like an obsessive nerd with issues and too much time on your hands. Of course at the extreme there is a point at which your kit will get you noticed. One of those nice big white zoom lenses for SLRs with a front element the diameter of a Starbucks' super-grande soya latte are hard to avoid - I know, for I have been clouted by one in a crowd in the past.

My personal preference is to blend in, plant myself and keep movement to a minimum. Let the images come to me, rather than go seeking them like a demented ninja. Like any good fisherman you do have to choose what the military would refer to as a "target rich environment", of course - it's no good stationing yourself on a deserted country lane and expecting a decisive moment or two within the lifetime of the average snail. In a busy street the way the human mind works is that you will rapidly become part of the scenery. Even if you are wearing a yellow jerkin of the sort favoured by road-sweepers and lollipop ladies, this will be the case. You are there, and therefore you fade from direct consciousness.

You can enhance this effect by dressing appropriately. Going out in a "photo vest" and a pair of zip-off Rohan trousers, with a camera suspended around your neck on a strap that screams "CANON DIGITAL" in big friendly day-glo letters will make it that bit harder for you to convince people that you have just parked yourself there for a quick cappuchino and a biscotti. In general, people see what they expect to see, and disregard the rest. So if you are at Henley, a stripey blazer will help you to blend in. If you are in the City, a pinstripe suit will probably be more helpful, and so on.

There is also an interesting reverse effect, that relies upon what Douglas Adams christened the "SEP Field", where SEP stands for "Someone Else's Problem". Again, this is a bit of mental sleight of hand that relies upon the laziness of the human brain. People do not tend to look - really look - at certain types of people - "Big Issue" sellers, charity muggers, street workers and urban inhabitants in general. The ubiquitous yellow jerkin previously referred to may make you feel conspicuous when you first don it, but put on some old jeans, a tatty sweater, heavy work boots and said jerkin and notice how quickly you fade from people's consciousness. They will actively go out of their way not to make eye contact, or to "take you in".

There are two other factors to consider in our lexicon of unobtusiveness. Firstly, movement. In very simple terms, a jerky, rapid movement catches the eye, while a slow and deliberate one does not. Don't blame me for that - blame our cave-dwelling ancestors and your primitive "monkey brain". Ug and Og realised that a sabre-toothed tiger tends to move faster, and more belligerently, than a three-toed sloth, so their descendants are hard-wired to this day to notice, and react to, sudden and possibly threatening movements. Swinging your camera to your eye as if you are about to launch a grenade in someone's direction is far more likely to cause a negative reaction than a slow, gentle swing up to your eye and away again. I also have a theory, by the way, that people are getting more and more habituated to the mobile 'phone stance for picture taking - small device held in portrait fashion, up high at half-arm's length, peering at a screen - than a small camera raised to the eye. I have no scientific proof for this, but if you try it out let me know.

I think I was spotted...

Last, but far from least, comes the power of "assumed authority". Con artists rely on this all the time. If you look like you know what you are doing, and that you should be there, people will accept that as the status quo. Again, it relies on the laziness of the human brain - if it looks right, it must be right, and we will look no further. Try wearing a reasonably smart suit on a Saturday and standing still with your hands clasped behind your back in a branch of Austin Reed (or Brooks Brothers, for transatlantic readers). I guarantee that within two minutes someone will come over and ask if you have a shirt in a 14 and a half collar in the stockroom. Similarly, if you handle your camera about as if you know how to use it (I am assuming that you do) and make no effort to hide, or look even remotely furtive, you can get away with murder (and the shot).

My most extreme example of this was at a convention in Brighton for the most ardent followers of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I was there to shoot the fans, some of whom go to the most extraordinary lengths to dress and make themselves up as their favourite characters. Because I was dressed and looked like a security man's idea of a photographer rather than a fan I was not challenged when I unintentionally passed a "no-entry" sign and found myself in the presence of some of the stars of the show. I quickly asked them to pose, which they did without demur. I got off at least half a dozen shots before my lack of ID badge was noticed and I was politely asked to "buggeroff".

The pictures? Well, I would love to show you, but strangely enough, they were mostly blank. I suppose it must be true what they say about vampires...

Bill

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- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- Why do all cameras, on film or tv, sound like a Nikon F3 with a motordrive?

Photo Analysis

No, I'm not going to write about the aesthetics of photography, about the rule of thirds or any other form of compositional criticism. The "photo analysis" to which I refer is the extent to which you can get inside a photographer's state of mind from the images they capture.

Of course it isn't quite as simple as that... there are a number of "gates" through which the photographer's images must pass before they are available to us for analysis. First, they have to survive "first view" - that's the first time the photographer sees his baby and has a chance to decide whether he likes it or not. In this digital age, first view is often on a small screen on the back of the camera. The more impulsive photographer may jab the delete button there and then - a beginner's mistake if ever there was one. The more considered (For which usually read "experienced" photographer knows better, and will view his outputs calmly some time after the event. The distance of time and space should enable him to be more objective in his editing.

The next big gate is "first edit"- of the images taken at the time, only some will be regarded by the photographer as good enough to be seen by the outside world. The third and final gate is "last edit". This is the big one - which images tell the story, how many should be shown and in what order? Whether a single shot, a tryptich or a complete photo-essay, whether a macro shot of a bug or a happy family snap the weeding process is essentially the same.

Some photographers self-edit very well. They understnd and appreciate that "less is more". Others hold the opposite view. They present an optic-nerve numbing parade of dismally monotonous shots that leave the viewer contemplating feigning death as a means of escape. A few years ago this involved sitting on the sofa at somebody's house with an album balanced on your knees (happy snapper) or a slide show ("advanced" amateur) popping in front of you. Now the bores can invade your desktop and your home via the medium of the internet and photo gallery and sharing sites such as Flickr. I'm not blaming the medium, by the way - it is a tool that can be abused like any other.

So. After all that, we have an image, or better a set of images, to assess. They can immediately communicate to us where the photographer was, how much freedom of movement he had, even, to an extent, how tall he is. To a lesser extent we can deduce what interests him, at least by way of subject matter. And here is where the fun starts. Of course some subjects, and the photographers' treatment of them, are more revealing than others. It is hard to get inside a photographers' head looking at still-life close-ups of flowers (a notable exception being the output of Mapplethorpe, of course - using a young man's bottom as a vase for a lily is a bit of a dead giveaway as to the inner workings of the image-taker).

People shots provide the best material, in my experience. Preferably of the candid, unposed variety. They give us two shots at the photographer's psyche. Firstly in his treatment of his subjects - is he sympathetic (think Doisneau) or aggressive (think Wingogrand) or disdainful (think Parr)? Does he empathise wih his subjects, or treat them as objects? Does he engage, or observe? Secondly is his subjects reaction to being photographed. Are they aware or unaware? If the former, what is their reaction? The way they react - the way they look - can speak volumes as to their feeling about the lens and more significantly the man behind it. Do they feel threatened or flattered? Are they relaxed or tense? Or resentful?

The photographer's "use" of people in a shot is also quite telling. Are they the subject, or an afterthought? Do they form part of a cohesive composition or do they appear uncomfortably out of place? There's no right or wrong here - only the chance to tap into the man (or woman) behind the lens.

It's a powerful tool, that transcends intent and reaches into the subconscious.

Consider this image:

...or this one:

...or indeed this:

I took them all, within a six week period, along with others that are similar in tone and theme. When I took them, in my mind, I was simply experimenting. The open door or portal motif that features in each one, together with the solitary but unrecognisable figure in the middle distance evolved rather than my setting up each shot.

Months after I took, and displayed them, mixed in with other shots, another photographer made the connection and linked them together in his mind and through his perceptive comments, in my own. He said that, to him at least, the images spoke of isolation, of alienation and of a journey, or a rite of passage - through the portal to somewhere else. At the time I was in a period of transition in my life and many of the themes that he felt came to him through the images were exactly in tune with my feelings at the time.

Once I realised this, I looked again at images I had captured at various times in my life, and "linked" them to how I was feeling at the time. The images took on a new and very personal dimension as I realised that the lens was not just pointing at the subject, but was also focussing on me.

It doesn't always work. If you go out, for example, to shoot a simple subject- vintage cars at a show, for instance, there is little of you to be "seen" in the resulting images. People shots are best, as I have already opined, and particularly "street" photography, like the shots above; you are more "in the zone" when taking shots like this. The "higher brain" is bypassed, and the "monkey brain" - that primative sub-cortex that has been with us since trees were desirable residences - takes over the shutter button.

Don't take my word for it - give it a try... you may learn something about yourself.

Bill

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- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- I'm just a bloke with a blog who takes pictures... if you disagree with any of what I write that's fine by me.

As if...

I went out today and shot a couple of rolls of film. Nothing special, just street shots. People going about their daily lives, in public. I didn't get arrested this time, but since the Anti-Terrorism (Enhanced Powers) Act of 2011 I know that I, and others like me, are on borrowed time.

*steps out of time machine*

Scary thought, isn't it? being treated like a criminal for doing something harmless.

Thing is, it's happening today. Tourists being told to delete their photos of bus stations, parents being told that they can't take photos of their own children in public, photojournalists being held without charge for doing their jobs, and of course it is now "illegal" to photograph a policeman in the performance of his duties.

Where did it all go wrong?

As usual, there is no one answer. The horror of 9/11 and the resultant increase in vigilance against terrorism is one contributory factor. The public paranoia about paedophilia is another. A third is the spread of sites such as Flickr, Facebook and MySpace - the fear these days is not just that your photo will be taken but that it will be posted on the internet.

So what?

In the UK at least:

• You do not have copyright in your own image.
• You do not have a right to privacy in a public place.

It's as simple as that.

Don't get me wrong - there is an etiquette to these things. I detest the working style of someone like Wingogrand, for example, who dehumanises his subjects with an in-yer-face approach and a blast of flash. How many frightened rabbits does he want to catch, I wonder? You must have respect for your subjects. That does not necessarily mean asking everyone in a street cafe if you can take their picture, but it does mean that you do not disturb them by your actions. You can achieve this in one of two ways - discretion, and permission - either works, depending on the circumstances; there is no right or wrong answer on this one.

Thing is, the photographer is an easy target - mooching around, laden down with apparatus, "acting suspiciously". The Police Community Support Officer, or PCSO appears particularly partial to a bit of hassling - at least, most of the recent complaints have involved a PCSO rather than a "real" copper. I suppose that it is easier to pick on a middle-aged bloke with a big gadget bag than the group of half a dozen hoodies across the road...

If challenged, by a member of the public or a member of the public in a stab vest (a PCSO) always stay calm. Explain what you are doing and why. Remember that attitude goes a long way to determining outcome, so if you come across as friendly and open, this will often defuse any hostility. If you are being threatened by a member of the public remove yourself from the situation if you can and/or call the police. If you are being detained by a PCSO or police officer, make sure you make a note of badge numbers and their stated reason for stopping you. Remember that a PCSO has no right to know your name, and can only detain you for 30 minutes or until a proper police officer arrives. Above all, remember that nobody has the right to confiscate your equipment, memory cards or film, and nobody has the right to ask - or force - you to delete or destroy your images.

Finally, not all PCSOs are part of the problem - this cheery pair were content to pose for me in central London not that long ago - after I had chatted to them of course...

--o-O-o--

Bill

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission
- You know you are getting older when your kids tell you the police are looking younger