Take Away:

I do not believe these images represent what I am hoping to communicate with my street photography. However, there is both an overlap with my past work, and a clear departure of the kind of moments that I hope to capture. This became a good exercise about composition, patience and discipline.

Challenges:

• Unwanted attention: Most individuals are too busy or too oblivious to notice what’s happening around them. However, there are a few types of people I will encounter in Hong Kong. The silent observer who will refuse to interact, make eye-contact or speak to you, but will hover for an extended period of time. They will try to discretely sneak photos with their phones. The extroverted observer, who will make eye contact, smile. Then a pleasant conversation blooms. I enjoy this interaction, but it is also distracting as I need to juggle the conversation and preparing to get my shot. If I have had taken my shot, I have let people look under the dark cloth and at the ground glass. The security guards that I have encountered are doing their job but they tend to overstep what their responsibilities and liabities are. As a result, I try to find the balance of not being walked all over and listening to their concerns. I do what I can to stay right by making sure that all the images are made in the public space and made for non-commerical purposes. 

• Size and Weight: Packing and planning so that I can set up and move relatively quickly. A healthy body and a strong back is a must. It will dictate the amount of time you are functionally capable of moving about with 25 kg of equipment on your back. I have recently been experimenting with a pelican rolling case and a think tank commuter. The think tank commuter is a lot more maneuverable. While the Pelican rolling case has provided a better environment to set up, a place to sit when shooting from a low angle or stand when shooting from a higher angle. Confronting stairs, which is inevitable in the hillier sides of Hong Kong Island, renders the advantages of the pelican case completely mute. 

• Composition: Even in the fastest hands it will take minutes to set up and and compose a shot. The decisive moment seems almost ridiculously impossible to capture when you account for the time it takes to set up a shot. I approached this problem by approaching scenes with planning. First, I preferred subjects in the distance. The further away they are, the easier it would be to nail focus. Second, I looked for scenes with some type of static control. It taught me to look for patterns or shapes more. Even without any subject, the pattern or other graphical element would be somewhat unique, if not interesting. Third, I would also plan where and how subjects would be most likely to interact within the frame. Then I would wait for the subject. for example, with the street crossing, it is fairly easy to predict where the focus will be. During which time, many different characters will have crossed the street. Finally, if a moment repeats occurs, I take the picture. 

• Focus and exposure: The physical limitations of the shutter of the lens limits my options and makes planning even more imperative. The lens’ widest aperture is f/9 and the fastest shutter speed is limited to shoot at 1/125th of a second. Most of the time I’m shooting somewhere between 1/4th second or 1/60th of a second. I take this into consideration when choosing the subjects. Once I’ve chosen the scene and the background, I plan for the plane of focus where the subject is going to be. I focus there and hope that I made the right call. Sometimes, it doesn’t go to plan. Other times, if I am lucky, I nail it.