And where are my images from the Multicultural Festival, I hear you ask?

Well ..... I didn't get any.  (Yes, I'm embarrassed.)

Despite my great love of street photography, I don't find t easy and have to get into a certain mind set. This weekend past - I didn't.

Maybe next year?

<sigh>

Shane "promises" Baker

Giving street photography another try

It's the Canberra Multicultural Festival this weekend, and I'm going to give street photography another try.

Although I admire street photography at its best - the likes of Elliott Erwitt come to mind - I haven't done much of it.

A few years back, I went to teh Festival armed with an SLR and a zoom and came away with one of my best ever images:

I love this shot. This man with his interesting face is deep in conversion with two friends who are conveniently framing his image. In my perhaps not very humble opinion, it's a genuiely good shot.

But I haven't done anything as good since.

So this year, I'm giving it a try with an innocuous little camera - one that looks like I'm using my grandad's old film rangefinder: my Fuji X10.

As you can see, it doesn't look like much. It's not likely that people will feel confronted by it. The alternative is for me to use my D800. Even with the "nifty 50", it looks a bit intimidating - though nowhere near as scary as an SLR mounting a 70-200 zoom!

Nevertheless, I may try the D800 - just as an experiment.

So with gear decided, the other issue is tactics. Apart from street portraiture, where the photographer literally asks permission to photograph people, there are basically two tactics. One can stalk one's subject with a relatively short lens, shoot from a distance with a long lens - or stake out a space and wait for them to come to you.

I'm going to try the latter - with the X10 and maybe with the D800.

I'll let you know how I go!

Shane Baker