I've always been a man of spontinuety. I liked portraits that weren't planned, or scenes that weren't acted. One thing I've never done before though, was pure street photography. I've travelled the streets asking people permission, but these often result in smiles, shy eyes, and unfortunate poses. So I tried to go out, hold the (beasty 20D and 12/24mm lens) camera by my side and take some shots.

Seen as this was my first time, and I never shoot in anything other than fully manual, my photographs were blurry, shoddy, and a lacking in any real quality.

But I pulled out one gem, and I'm happy with this. What do you guys think? - Do you have any street shots you'd like to share? I'd love to see them!



I may as well share this one too, it was quite good.

Did you desaturate that first picture? It looks like the only color that really pops is the red.

Were you "shootin' from the hip?"

I increased vibrance, decreased saturation, it makes the strong colours pop, and the not-so-strong colours very bland - works really well!

And I was shootin' from the hip indeed!

I'm all for street photography like this, but a) the camera's off angle b) you get a more natural shot if you use a long zoom and are far away and pretending you're taking a picture of scenery c) I have never liked pics where only one color or so pops out, something about it just annoys me.

the second one is okay, indeed, i dont like the first one tho.

i love street photography, btw.

but to do street photography, its to suggest to buy, in this special case, the right gear first:
street photography doesnt make sense bith a big ass slr, what you want is at least a good point and shoot, maybe one of the leica digitals or a nice kodak retina af or the ricoh gr, which make more sense, since street photography is grainy-black-and-white-ilford-film-photography with almost just black and white and only minor shapes of grey, or, to go the "true", classic way, the way you want, get a rangefinder, while it almost doesnt matter which brand, wheather its an old minolta himatic or a kodak retina rf, or a voigtländer, a zeiss or, and thats the high-class for everyone who takes photos, a leica, mp or m6, m7 pretty much sucks, too much automatic, or of course a leica m3, and my favorite, the voigtländer bessa r3a, since its the best right after the leicas (a matter of taste of course) at approx. 1/3 of the price (leica m6: ca. 1500-2000€, at least at an A-condition, while the bessa is 599€ new.), and before someone steps in: i know, the r3a also has automatic shutter speed.

take a look at this to get some inspiration:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/380389...me+-in%3Ascraps

"be like a ghost, take the picture and before the subject recognized he/she was just photographed already be somewhere else, shooting something else"

you're right, the 20D will attact a lot of attention. i used to have a minolta dimage A1 that was perfect for this sort of thing. it had antishake (moved the sensor, not the lens elements) which was great when you couldn't be steady. and the LCD on the back could flip in many positions so you could be looking down at your camera and shoot photos while nobody really paid attention to you. it definitely isn't the quality of a canon SLR, but in this situation it was great because of the gimmics it had.

Get a range finder if you can. Then go read this: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/38038974/

I love the images. What camera did you use?

Just wanted to comment that I like both pictures.
I like the faux-watercolor retouch look of the first. I agree that the angle is off- too much foreground, but not bad. A small crop would help.
The second has the scene a bit more balanced- about equal foreground and background distances above and below the people.
Also, with the second, it's an interesting statement that the b/w gives it an older feel but there is a video camera on the wall at the top of the shot.

the city in south korea

You should base your Leica opinions from your own use, not from what you probably read on rangefinderforum. I doubt there is anyone on this forum who would say 'No thanks, it sucks.' when offered an M7 to use.

Lomography

how can you know ive never used these?

i did indeed, and i didnt like the m7.

fullstop. =)



lomography also is good for street, why not. the classic lc-a or the holga, but you will not get magum-photo-like-results...

One i took the other day

Nice shot Michael..