Exercise 13: A standard view

For this exercise I’ve tried another trip into Keswick – on a rather more pleasant day, and market day at that, so lots of people around. I found this exercise more intimidating than Ex11, largely because you need to get a lot closer to the subject to fill the frame. I have started to get the hang of shooting on the move without making eye contact, although it still feels intrusive and I’ve yet to really get close enough to start frame filling with a head and shoulders. Oddly I had the opposite problem to previous attempts i.e. there were sometimes so many people that I couldn’t keep moving fast enough to feel comfortable.

Early on in the afternoon I also had a little trouble getting shots in focus.  I had the camera set to auto-iso (upper limit 800), f/11 and manual focus at around the hyperfocal distance, so I was a bit baffled until I realised that I had the camera set only to shoot when there was a confirmed focus – which simply blocked some shots - and that I had to be careful not to move the focus ring by accident.

Anyway here are the best of the bunch. They have all been processed with a preset I like in Lightroom – the slightly muted colours, relatively low contrast and key seem to fit the mood better than the unprocessed version.

                   

My personal favourites are the first one, because the newspaper headline caught my eye – although a longer focal length would have been better – the two oriental tourists peering into their cameras – a bit blurred but I still like it – and the last one of the family in the park. In this last example I actually heard one of them ask ‘Did he take our photo?’ as I walked by so it was a bit of a confidence boost to find no-one chased after me!

Thoughts

Most of my thoughts have been expressed in the intro paragraphs. the shorter focal length was more intimidating so I didn’t get the portraits that I achieved with the long lens. Had I used the long lens with the traffic density I had today I think I would have suffered from people getting in the way. I think that I might , with practise get to the point where the 17mm(34mm equiv.) on my PEN felt quite natural, but anything wider than that will require a crowd at an attraction. So time to research some locations for Exercise 12.