Bills Posts

For a couple of reasons, I’m not able to put my DSLR on the tripod in the morning, and I’ve found that even now the light is going just a very very small bit, and that means that any long shots are blurred. It’s getting to the point where it’s not worth taking the camera out.

Instead then, I’ve started today carrying it at lunchtime. I walked down the high street with it, and I definitely got a few looks. People aren’t used to seeing big cameras. I suspect people might be thinking why bother with that if you have a mobile phone. I like it though.

I didn’t take any pictures as I walked down the street. I’m planning to do that regularly now. What I want to do is take pictures of the shop keepers, the idea being the 21st century equivalent of heavily posed Victorian shopkeepers, all lined up outside the shop. At some point if a shop keeper isn’t busy, I’m going to ask if I can take their pictures. Thing is though I need to get some business cards as I want them to see the picture on line.

The arrival of the next issue of B&W Photography is usually eagerly awaited and Issue 267 was no different. Like all of the magazines I receive, I’ve paid for it so I’m going to read it from cover to cover. Usually there is an article that makes me think, and this month it was a piece about photographer Alexander Diaz and pictures from her portfolio; https://alexdiazphoto.com/section/46584-Bus-Culture-of-Latin-America.html

It wasn’t the beauty of the start landscape, or the bitting poverty she illustrated it was the type of photographs he was able to take. Culture is not the same in the UK clearly, but there are a lot of pictures of character to be taken that show life today, from the rough sleeper to the shop owner stood in doorway.

He (Diaz) acknowledges that he spent time (up to a month) living in areas so that people got to know him and to relax in his presence when he was taking their picture. I would love to do something like that, but in my home town (I don’t want to travel too far). I think that IK am going to start carrying my SLR on my lunch time walks, I want to be obvious that I am carrying a camera – this really does fly in the face of what I wrote yesterday about being discrete. I think this time discretion has gone out of the window. I am going to do this.

Why do I want to do street photography – since I started doing this blog not far off two years ago now I have written a fair number of times about the practice.

I like taking all sorts of photos, from macro (I really need to practice this – and might indulge in a bit of microphotograhpy) through abstract to Panorama, but with not that many opportunities for the street, by which I mean people in the street.

I think people get fixated on certain things, particularly with this hobby (and to be honest most hobbies that I seem to get interested in) the equipment. Of nearly everything I have read by far one of the most consistent comments is that a DSLR with a big lens is by far not the ideal combination of kit for street photography, it is too bulky, and too obvious. One of the points of street photography is discretion.

So, if we can’t use our DSLR, how about the mobile phone? You really can’t get much more discrete than that, this devices are ubiquitous – I don’t think it’s unfair to say that. Apparently penetration of the mobile phone stands at nearly 92% of the worlds population. Of course, some excellent street photography pictures can and will be taken with the mobile phone. But because users have relatively little practical control over the camera in the phone (control is possible, but fiddly, and not really responsive to “the moment”, it is not considered the ideal device.

So, what is the perfect device for street photography? Well it appears to be a small compact camera, that provides full manual control preferably through external buttons and nobs rather than menu options and prices seem to start at around £500 up to as many thousands as you wish (and are able to spend). That’s just a tad frustrating because I can’t really justify that level of expenditure. Even at the bottom end.

I haven’t found my solution yet. Luckily, that’s not a major problem as I don’t have that many opportunities. Oh, and I am very aware that an operator will blame their tools for their own failings. I need to practice with the tools that I have, and then perhaps one day, I will wander through the streets of Gosport, or Dorchester or Weymouth taking some good streets photographs.

At the end of the working day there’s not much better than having a cup of tea at the bottom of the garden. We always enjoy having birds in the garden, even the pigeons although my wife might disagree, she’s not that fond of them.

I don’t what has happened to the starlings, I haven’t seen them for a couple of days. There are always the sparrows of course, I love them. Seeing them having a go at the feeders, feeling frustrated that I can’t feed all of them.

We also have a group three magpies. Trouble is they think the garden is theirs and they make no bones about letting us know. Magpies really do sound angry. I think its brilliant. We don’t agravate them. Really love to see them, they are such beautiful birds.

The garden itself is so colourful at the moment. Lots of flowers. We had to cut back the wild patch, it was coming to an end. Hopefully some more will grow before winter comes. The more insects we have visiting us the better. Hopefully, the two rather large Buddleia will attract lots of butterflies. I’ve just seen that the Big Butterfly count starts this Friday, the 15th and reruns through to 7th of August. I really enjoyed doing that, and saw some beautiful butterflies.

All in, a very satisfying day.

I started out trying to write a piece about my feeling grumpy today, and I did do for several reasons; I bumped my head, that made me feel grumpy, I stumbled over something that I had left laying around. My wife leaves the fridge door open too long, that makes me grumpy. But really these are all minor.

The thing is I don’t really do grumpy. It’s not really in my nature – well, I don’t feel that it is. Hopefully not. I would much rather be cheerful, I feel so much happier, and I find that attitude brings rewards in life, by leaving other people happy as well.

I wanted to write a longer post today, and I apologise for not doing so. We’ve had a really busy day, but it has in its own way been quite rewarding.

Today we reached 26C. Now, there are a lot of places that get a lot hotter but for me this was on the edge of uncomfortable.

I managed to get out for a walk though in the early afternoon. The town was quite lively, the Saturday market was on, with the usual stalls. – it’s not huge, but its always nice to see it.

The pubs and the street cafes were all very busy. With the Wetherspoons being unusually loud. Lots of people strolling along. As I got toward the end of the high street I could hear the tinkle of bells. Turning round there were a whole bunch of Morris dancers walking down the street. I got the impression that they had been performing and were returning home.

So, it was nice to get some people into my pictures. It was a nice walk, but it was warm.

I was in bed only a few minutes later than my normal time, and as usual, no screens. I went out, as they say, like a light earlier than usual.

I slept solid until not much before 0530, I normally awaken around 0400, all the initial indications are that I’d had a good nights sleep.

Why then did I feel so tired? To the point that for a minute or two I seriously considered not getting up for a walk.

As usual, I’m glad I did.

Sorry, an unreasonably short post tonight. Tired!

The problem I have is light. Now that I have started taking my DSLR camera out with me in the morning, I have already noticed the loss of light where the mornings are drawing in. It’s not an issue as far as my eyes are4 concerned, but most of the pictures I am taking on the nikon are blurry.

I don’t have the same problem with the phone because for most of the walk it is mounted on the tripod. Not only that, but its image stabilisation is better than the D5300.

I have been thinking a fair bit recently that i have very few people in my pictures but that’s partially because I see only the occasional person on the morning walk. It’s an entirely different matter at lunchtime, when I more often than not perceive the high street to be heaving.

I would love to do some street photography, but I would like to try and be reasonably discreet, which I can try with the Nikon, so lets see how it works.

Having said that I see very few people on my AM walk, this morning as I was walking between two of the tower blocks, aways from the Esplanade, a chap, in a rather gaudy shell suite type think who was walking across my path started performing for me, and was clearly inviting me to take his picture. Naturally, they came out blurred!

I know that I wrote about the morning walk only a few posts ago, and here we are again, but this is a slightly different focus.

There are things about each walk; some never change, others are never the same. When I stepped out the door for this mornings walk, the chilled are made appreciate that I wore a fleece. A lovely blue sky, streaked with high thin clouds brightly lit by the rising sun promises a warming walk.

Especially the the skies are never the same. Sometimes, as I am walking toward the waterfront, I can lighting and clouds that I know will give a good picture. Of course that will change by the time I water front. Sometimes, you arrive at the waterfront with the clouds just right and that gives you a lovely sky.

Sometimes I see wildlife. Of course, there are the birds. The morning chorus is always different. This morning, there were a couple of crows on a roof shouting at each other, and I can usually hear the magpies shouting to each other. Then you get the more cheerful birds, blackbirds, robins, sparrows and starlings who always appear to be chattering.

Over the last couple of mornings I have had the delight of seeing a vixen with her cubs. Just lovely, and highlight the always changing content of the walk.

The iPhone 12 has an excellent camera. It has three lenses, each with a zoom factor; 0.5 (wide angle), 1 (normal) and 2.5 (zoom). The phone also has the facility for a 12x digital zoom. Now, there are times when I do use the zoom, but it becomes very useful obvious, very quickly that there is no way that the camera at 12x digital zoom can give images anywhere near as sharp as a proper lens. The header picture is taken with my nikon, using the 18-400mm lens at the top end of the zoom,

I bought the nikon at least 6 years ago because I had always wanted to own one, it didn’t matter that it was pretty much bottom of the range, and an entry level camera – it’s a Nikon. I love it. But then the quality of the phone cameras has come on in leaps and bounds, and the phone slips in to the pocket, and doesn’t need an awkward strap to carry a heavy device (that does the strap a major injustice. It makes it a lot more comfortable to carry).

I took this picture this evening, 12 times zoom, actually, it looks pretty good. I’m going to start carrying the D5300 more so that I get the advantage of both.