STL DPB ON THE ROAD - STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN VIENNA

 

Stock im Eisen-Platz, Vienna, outside St. Stephen's Cathedral. We have only one brief day in this interesting, vibrant city.  We'd love to come back with more time, but we wonder if age and spines will rule out future trips like this.         

HEY MISTER, TAKE MY PICTURE

 

I was out cruising yesterday, looking for anything to shoot. It wasn’t going well, and Mrs. C and I wonder if we have ongoing brain fog after our recent episodes of norovirus. When I was parked at a curb to photograph a building across the street, this driver pulled into a queue at a traffic light. He saw my camera and gestured at me to take his picture. It was a gift. Being an old white guy, I could use help interpreting the hand gesture.                 

QUEENS OF THE NIGHT

 

Lots of us shooters are uncomfortable photographing people in the street. I’ve been taught how to go about it by the best teacher I've ever had for anything ever, Bobbi Lane, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100063709410534 . It’s still awkward for those of us who only do so occasionally but there are times when it’s easy. Public events where people want to be seen are the best. Just an “Excuse me, ladies, may I?” never gets a turn down at something like STL’s Halloween party.              

ONE OF THE TWO MOST COMMON QUESTIONS ASKED OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS

1. Hey, mister, take our picture! (I consider that a question as well as a request.)

Answer: Sure! Lets get some good light on you.

2. Get any good pictures today?

Answer: I'll know when I download them to my computer.

So there are some events going on here this weekend.  I had to get out on the street. After a nap following Ellie's dawn patrol dance recital I got out to our annual Hispanic Festival. St. Louis has a smaller Latin population than many American cities but the event is enthusiastic and colorful. These guys were just hanging out near where I parked my car and asked Question No. 1. Made some new friends.           

STL DPB On The Road - Street Photographs

Posts and picture have been low because I still have significant mobility problems. I can walk some but uneven surfaces (plenty of them here) are a problem. Plus I have a pretty bad cold (and yes, those of you who watch out for me, I went to la pharmacia and la doctora prescribed an expectorant-decongestant, being very careful to tell me how much and how often). Not sure how much good it's doing. Some.

So I utilized a time-honored street photographer's technique. We went to find a place to sit at  an Argentine place called Patagonia. We were early so we had our pick of tables. Many Tico restaurants are open sided so we went to corner seats, I flipped down the LED screen so I was not conspicuous and fired away.

J'accuse

More street pix from Manhattan. Gotta find some new material but there's not much going on this weekend other than baseball games and some dinky Bastille Day celebration tomorrow. Maybe I'll go to a bar and take pictures of people watching the World Cup final on Sunday. Maybe I'll have to take pictures of St. Louis. That would be a little different.   

In Line

It got cold again in New York on Monday. Because neither of us remembered to buy tickets for the Whitney in advance, we had to stand in a long line in the chill outside the door. Later, we were waiting for our table at the museum's upscale restaurant. It had a window wall looking onto the sidewalk and that line. I shot these with my little Olympus. It has a flip-out screen so you can shoot from waist level with little chance of being noticed.

These people have quite different reactions to the situation. The young Asian woman looks sad, and did the whole time I was watching. Her companion is quite perky. The woman on the right looks distraught in both photos. Did someone not show up to meet her?                       

Some Street Portraits

Found at Grovefest.                   

Dans La Rue

Home now. We've been up for about 23 hours. Time to let consciousness slide.

This is something I caught on Rue Cler during the market on Sunday.

Our Second Anniversary

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Two years and 736 posts ago, St. Louis Daily Photo Blog was hatched. It's gotten me out to explore my own city, meet interesting people, shoot the world from Shanghai to London and learn a lot about photography. So here I am again, out in the street (Bourbon Street in New Orleans this time), doing what I like best, taking street portraits. It's an awful lot of work but it's worth it.

Thanks to all the many visitors and commentators. Look back from time to time. Who knows what image lurks around the next corner?

Chips Pickles Candy

This man was selling ice cream and snacks on a side street just off the parade route. I stopped and chatted with him well before the parade started when he was not busy. He works special events and, in between, just cruises neighborhoods and parks. The idea for this kind of shot is that a photographer can just go up and start talking to somebody about him or herself - never about you. Once a little relationship is established you can ask to take their picture. Few people say no. If that happens, just be polite, smile, say thanks anyway and find someone new to meet.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series (special sauce department)

King DJ

The Annie Malone parade Sunday went on for about two and a half hours. There was a huge amount to shoot but the main parade route was out in hard sunshine, creating harsh shadows and bright spots. I went up a side street where the parade was ending and there was some shade. This man was riding on top of a truck, promoting his DJ service. His hat says "King."

There are some excellent nature photographers on CDBP. Other kinds of fauna interest me more, some wild, some domesticated.

TOMORROW: Chips, pickles, candy.

Journalista

This young woman was sitting in a downtown plaza, writing in a notebook, on a pleasant spring afternoon. It was a quick snap. When I was editing the picture in Photoshop, I zoomed in to fix some details and found that she was writing in Spanish. A surprise - we don't have a big Hispanic population here, unlike many American cities. Perhaps she is a student or a visitor. I can make out some of it (my Spanish is weak but more than nothing) in the high-resolution original. You can't in this version and that's partly on purpose.

Some photographers talk about the ethics of what is called "sniping," taking photos in public without the subject's knowledge or permission. Does this picture violate her privacy? I found some personal information, her journal, but did not realize it until post-production. On the other hand, one of my photographer idols, Diane Arbus, said that "One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed."

What's your view of photographing people in public without their permission?

TOMORROW: Jurassic Park

Thursday Arch Series

This young man and a couple of friends were on the street below the Arch, taking pictures of one another in front of the monument. I wandered by with all my gear hanging off me and offered a suggestion for framing the shots better. Since all my gizmos are like the Official Photographer Badge, they were interested in discussing this and liked the results they got. They were really fun to talk to. This is one of the little tricks. If possible, don't just walk up to someone and ask if you can take their picture (you do ask permission, don't you?). Engage people in conversation about themselves. Never talk about yourself. Things warm up and you get friendly. Only at this point do you say something like, "Gee, that looks really cool. Would it be ok if I took your picture?"

You get permission a very high percentage of the time. I chatted up John from Tuesday's post by asking about his horse, then his job. I asked about his colleague I photographed last summer and we talked about her illness. By then we were very friendly and taking the picture was no problem.

By the way, I've found it very handy to carry photographer mini-cards from MOO.com. You have an assortment of your photos on one side and up to six lines of text on the other. I have my name, email address and URLs for the blog, my Flickr page and my dormant web site. I always tell people that if they email me I will send them a copy of their picture. They love that.

The guy in this picture, his friends and I had a good time together. After we were done it was handshakes all around. Like I said Tuesday, there are ways to do it. Really helps to take a class with someone experienced in approaching people in public for photos.

TOMORROW: Moolah