POTD 23 April 2014 - Reading

[Mike Farley]

I captured this walking around the Brick Lane area before meeting with other members of the club for our evening photoshoot.

[Sam,anthaBriscoe]

Hi Mike. I think this is a great shot. Converting to black and white reduces any colour distractions in the image and makes the person more important. Did you ask his permission to photograph beforehand?

Sam.

[Mike Farley]

Thanks for the comment, Sam.

This is a candid shot. Permission is not required when photographing people in public places, although I would advise discretion in applying this. There are sensitivities around taking pictures of children without consent, for example. In this instance I did not want to disturb the scene, so I flipped out the screen of my camera and shot from waist level, which also had the benefit of a lower viewing angle. The camera I used was an Olympus E-M10 and the screen only tilts along one axis. I find a screen which can be twisted in any direction to be more useful as it means that I can point the camera at the subject without looking in their direction, which can be more discrete.

One thing which I am careful to do when shooting candidly on the street is ensure that my camera is always visible, but not obvious as I do not want people to think I am hiding it. I have a wrist strap which means that I can hold it in my hand and have it down by my side while walking along. The main drawback with this approach with this is that it is a bit too easy to operate the controls inadvertently. The E-M10 is better in this respect than its predecessor, but I still find that there is one dial which overhangs the front of the camera which sometimes gets turned. By default, it operates exposure compensation, but I have changed it to control the aperture instead. That way, at least I will have a correct exposure even if the aperture is not ideal.

[Sam,anthaBriscoe]

Thanks Mike. Some great tips there, I look forward to putting these into action on my next trip.