Appleby Travellers Horse fair #blackandwhite

Curators choice in the Black and White awards thanks +Kujaja Jaja  and +Robert E Smith 

Pleased to be a part of this years #Brighton  calendar

Ace Café Brighton Burn Up 2015 #Brightonburnup #acecafelondon +Ace Cafe London  #Brighton

#blackandwhite   #blackandwhitephotography   #monochrome   #monochromephotography   #monochromemonday  

Pa Cawley with Marley the dog watching Christopher Walsh and his horse Silver on the #Moyross Eastate #limerick #Ireland  

Just read this essay by +Frank Van Riper about Garry Winogrand. It really resonated with me. 

I was asked in an interview yesterday, what I thought about the tag street photographer applied to me. Was it controversial because obviously I communicate with some of my subjects on the street, and some would deem that NOT to be "street photography" 

This, in the same week I am put on a list of top British street photographers 
http://www.idesigni.co.uk/blog/top-british-street-photographers-in-2015/

I think the term street photography means different things to different people. 

There is a current trend for raw street photography. Images straight out of camera, no retouching, no communication with subject, no cropping. There are many masters of this too, they are well known for their craft and undeniably talented. I am talking of people such as David Gibson, Matt Stuart, Paul Russell the list goes on.

My point is this. If the limitations that these talented photographers impose upon themselves to achieve their art, however great, is used to define all "street photography" then:

Winogrand, Erwitt, Bresson, Arbus, Klien etc. were not street photographers.

That, in my opinion is balderdash :) They, like me, were/are all street photographers. 

I go onto the street and I take pictures, lots of them. I move very quickly and identify and grab all the opportunities I can muster. I make constant connections between things, people and their environment, people and people, things and people. If two things I see would come together in a great way I will manipulate the situation to achieve it. I'll ask a person to move closer to something if I see a great opportunity. I'll also grab candids when I see them, it's all about the image for me, weather I am involved or not. I am often very close because I shoot so wide, I get much better images by communicating with people when I have my lens up their noses.

What identifies me and many like me as street photographers, (IMO), is that we go out into the streets and capture what is in front of us,  we have no control over what will happen around us, we may use what is available and create something with it by communicating with the people around us, but we seize the opportunities as they arise, and react instinctively.

I'll cover processing in another post.

#streetphotography   #streetpics   #photography  

A final edit of my Ms Samantha Man Portrait at #Brighton Fringe City Event
+Brighton Festival +Brighton Fringe 

+StreetPics curated by  +Arnold Goodway #StreetPics

+HQSP Portraits curated by  +Anja Wessels +Heiko Köster +Frank Nöthe #HQSPPortraits

+Monochrome World curated by  +andi rivarola #monochromeworld

Street artist Kevin O'Neill in Trafalgar Square.  Am beginning to use my longer lenses more now, still shooting wide when I see a must have shot, but leaving the 14-70 on my +Olympus Pen (which gives me 28-150) much more.

It makes me think differently, It's much easier to suggest relationships between the foreground and background content, because its easier to position yourself somewhere where both will be prominent in the frame.

I've been having to think about using different sorts of lenses a lot because of my photography workshops. I spend one to one time with clients and they all have different lenses, so I have to think in terms of their lens.

At longer lengths (bear in mind 35mm is like a zoom for me) I don't have to move so far to make huge differences in the composition of an image, and I can make much finer adjustments to the spaces and lines in the frame.

I've also found that now I am doing very little cropping. Making me think about micro-adjusting my position is improving the precision of my framing. 

#trafalgarsquare   #blackandwhite   #monochromephotography   #monochromemonday