Yesterday I went for a walk with my camera taking photos of various people and places. I still have to build my confidence a bit, I’ve been taking photos through windows mainly, mostly because I like the aesthetic it gives and partly because I’m too shit scared to take photos of people with them knowing. I posted a couple of the photos up today. I’m going to go for a walk, maybe to East London, hoping to get some nice shots. Although there’s a distinct danger that I may end up pissing my money on something completely useless.

On a side note I decided to buy a signed copy of ‘Looking for Alice’ by Sian Davey. It’s a truly fantastic book, here’s a link to her website

http://siandavey.com

It’s been a few weeks since I got a new camera with the aim of getting in to street photography and generally taking more pictures. Some of the results I’ve been quite pleased with, however mostly it’s been a massive learning curve.

Post processing was something I think I relied on too much. Some of the images I captured were already fairly decent and didn’t require the heavy vsco filters I was applying to them. This probably comes from my video background, (seeing as video cameras these days are designed with the idea of post processing/grading the image). Speaking with friends (long time street photographers), it seems the less is more approach yields greater results for a natural image. Also I’m learning, so relying too heavily on filters and lightroom to fix my mistakes means I’m not learning from them. At most I’ll try to limit my post processing to adding a little contrast, maybe adjusting exposure or wb if required. By moving away from heavy post processing I’m hoping the results will add a timelessness to images, as filter fads go out of date. However having said that, I won’t shy away from b&w and the use of presets/filters in commercial work.

Also I want to make it clear that I don’t scoff at the use of filters in any way. Some of them are really fantastic and can add to an image especially for commercial use.

As you can see these two images are very different, although I like them both, the one on the left is really missing the point. It’s had filters/contrast/exposure adjustments and sharpening applied, and although quite a pleasing image is missing the ‘feeling’ of the original on the right (a little contrast +5 added).