changing my focus...

For a long time, getting the focus right on the subject was important to me. What was the point in taking a photograph unless the subject was pin sharp and crystal clear? Surely photography was always about every detail and every aspect of the subject being in focus? So I’d go out, armed with my camera, survey the scene, set my lens to f8, raise the shutter speed to 1/1000, then take the shot, confident I will get a nice sharp photo. Recently, that’s shifted…

Of course, I still take shots where the subject is in sharp focus, but I’ve gradually shifted away from that being my default, starting to look more at shapes, lights and forms, giving the viewer something to figure out. Not too much that it becomes almost impossible to discern what the subject is, but enough to make the viewer do a little bit of work. It is much more about a sense of the street rather than accurately portraying every detail, every element of the city.

In a way, I guess this is a natural progression. I tend to enjoy art that demands investment from those engaging with it. Whether it be films or books, I like something that challenges me, that gets me to do some work. I tend to find myself less interested in art that presents the obvious, the popcorn movie or the page turner. Every now and then I’ll indulge of course, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something light. But it’s not what gets my juices flowing, what gets me interested, engaged, talking, thinking…

Sure, this kind of photography is very in vogue (and owes a lot to the popularity of Saul Leiter’s work), and can sometimes veer into cliche. However, I find it a valuable process in understanding the importance of form and light, and not just worrying about whether my subject is in focus. Learning different techniques and approaches are, in my view, an important step in developing as a photograpger. This approach isn’t an end point, it’s just part of the learning process. And it’s a part I am very much enjoying.

Here’s some shots taken around Shoreditch and Liverpool Street Station.

When the fog descends...

…head to Deal. Or Margate. Or Folkestone. Or…well, anywhere.

Fog is that magical element that we all (I think?) hope for at this time of year. You scour the weather apps, desperate for a sign, anything, that suggests maybe there will be some fog on the way. You build your hopes up when Clear Outside suggests 10 for fog, only to remember all those times before when it was just cloudy. Or you check the Met Office, excited to see a VP for visibility. Could this be the moment? Or will it be another VP that turns out to be E?

Most of the time, you’re hesitant because that forecast for fog hits the morning and, let’s face it, even in the winter, that morning rise can be a bit of a chore when all you have is a hint of hope that maybe you’ll wake to find that you can barely see beyond your doorstep. But every now and then, the forecast is in the evening and when that happens…bingo! No early rising, no dragging yourself out of bed on a cold morning, it’s just a late afternoon drive somewhere, and a leisurely stroll around before getting home in time for tea. Fog in the afternoon/evening is the dream, so often much more elusive than in the morning.

It just so happens that this last weekend, fog was forecast in the evening. So I decided to grab my stuff and head to Deal and hope for the best. Imagine my disappointment as I got ever closer, only to find there was not even the slightest hint of fog. Was I in for disappointment? Perhaps. Oh well, I got out of the house at least…

Found a suitable parking space, parked up, grabbed my coat, my camera bag, my beanie…wait, what’s that? That street lamp seems to be picking up some mist rolling in. Don’t tell me it’s actually going to happen? The very moment I park up, now the fog is going to roll in? This never happens. I’m nearly always in for disappointment. Well, we’re in. Let’s go!

And so into town, down the sidestreets, onto the promenade…the pier is…well, it’s there because I can see the lights. But that’s all I can see. Other than two figures sitting on the wall looking out to sea. Maybe a walk on the pier would be good with the lights…I feel an urge to channel my inner blade runner fandom. Just need the right subject, a person or couple that I can make the subject, with enough distance to other people to make it appear like they are on their own. A couple going for an eery walk down the pier in the evening, with the pier lights shining bright. That will do the job.

Back into town. Fog, cold, condensation…there have got to be some shots to be had here. The ice cream parlour. That usually works. Almost empty, but for a couple sitting at a table, reading a paper. Great. Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes the opportunities just scream out at you. Sure, sometimes the shot can be obvious, perhaps there’s more unique shots to be had if you just spend a bit of time thinking about it, but what if the moment goes? What if you lose any shot at all? All the thoughts that buzz around your head before you press down on the shutter. There will be plenty of times to mess around and experiment. Sometimes it’s just about getting the shot, no matter how obvious it feels in hindsight.

A potter back through town, hands in pockets, longing for the warmth of the car. And then it’s done. Got lucky. Got shots. Got cold. Got home. Until next time, evening fog. Whenever that may be…

How I Edit My Night Street Photos

I figured, as I’ve been posting a lot of night street photos lately, maybe I should put together a quick post on how I edit my photos. I’ve had a few comments in recent months about the look of my photos, so now seems a good time to run through how I take my photos from this…

to this…

The back of someone with a ponytail against a window, an neon sign that says open is above their head.

In Camera Settings

Before getting into the edits, a bit about the settings I use when shooting with my XT3. I generally stick to as wide open as possible, and so I tend to exclusively use my 33mm f1.4 lens. In terms of shutter speed, I hover around 1/125 and 1/250 depending on whether the subject is stationary. I leave the ISO on automatic (with an upper limit of ISO3200) and exposure compensation around -1 to -2 to protect the highlights. I also always shoot in RAW.

I should also add that all my edits are done on an iPad Air. I tend to find with street photography I don’t need to do heavy edits, use layers and layer masks and whatever. Photoshop isn’t something I find myself needing. What I want is a convenient way of editing that enables quick edits on the fly. Lightroom and the iPad do this perfectly for my needs.

Light

Lightroom screenshot showing settings.

As you can see, I push the exposure up quite a fair amount when editing. This is largely due to the exposure compensation I apply in-camera. It doesn’t impact upon the image quality and, crucially, it ensures I protect the highlights. The highlights too are dropped right down, although in some scenes I might lift them up, depending on how I want to work the light in the scene. Mostly though, I drop it down. I also drop the contrast to soften the image so it’s not too crunchy, I prefer a softening effect in my images where possible (although, again, I may do otherwise depending on what I want to achieve with the image). I also drop the whites, drop the blacks a tiny amount and lift the shadows a small amount (in this case to show more detail from the person’s clothing).

In terms of the tone curve, I tend to lift the blacks a little to give it that filmic quality and very slightly drop the whites. Again, I may lift the blacks on the tone curve or drop them down depending on the image itself.

Colour

With Colour, I drop the temperature right down. Typically my night shots are taken during the winter, and so I find they work best if they are cooled down a bit to around 3200k, adding in more blue tones. I then tint towards the purple and add some saturation and vibrance to the image.

Where I really start to get the colours I want is in the HSL area and the Colour Grading (more on that below). I particularly like my blues to be pushed towards the green/blue and quite desaturated, making for a softer blue that I find more appealing. I also push the yellows more towards the orange and also desaturate slightly. The combination of the two together helps to get the colour palette in the kind of place I would like to be before I move on to Colour Grading.

Colour Grading

This is where I think I have the biggest impact on the look of my images. As you can see, I tend to grade the image with blues in the shadows, oranges in the highlights and, most importantly, I add green to the midtones. I think this is the single most important element in terms of getting the tones I like across the whole of the image. By pushing in those greens it gives the image much more of the kind of atmospheric (futuristic?) look that I like in my night photos. It just seems to really work to lift the images above being a straightforward, “as it looked to my eye at the time” type edit. I think that in combination with pushing the blues towards the green-blue and pushing the white balance to the colder end of the scale really seems to work for me. Of course, I may take a different view in years to come, but for now it gives the night photos a look that I really like.

Effects

When it comes to the effects, in most cases I tend towards negative clarity (-10 to -20 typically) and negative dehaze (-5 to -10). This is largely because I want to soften the image rather than give it harsh, hard edges. In this case, I’ve slightly nudged up both just to add some detail to the hair in the ponytail. Again, it’s about the specific image and what I want to achieve with it. Either way, I tend to be fairly cautious with both clarity and dehaze as pushing them too far either way can lead to some odd looking images. Texture I always increase to add a bit of fine detail to the images.

I also always add a vignette, and quite a heavy one on night photography by my usual standards (around -15 tends to be my default). I sometimes also add a radial vignette over the subject and invert it to darken around the subject and draw more attention to it. Finally, I add a bit of grain just to add to the atmosphere of the image and help to push it towards that more filmic look.

Anyway, that’s pretty much how I edit my night photos. As I’ve kept saying above, some of the specifics are very much dependent on the image itself. Generally speaking I apply a preset then adjust according the image itself (I always see a preset as a starting point rather than a one-click solution to an image), but these are broadly the kinds of settings I go for. The things that never really change are the white balance and the colour grading, other than that, I shift things around to suit the image.

And that’s my photo editing of night street photos regime! Hope you found that useful/interesting!

ian

Christmas in Seville

As we do every year, we spent the post-Christmas/New Year period in Spain staying with my in-laws. Whenever we come, I try to make space for a bit of street photography, but it really depends on a number of factors, the prime factor being whether the car is available for me to use to drive into the city. If it is, and the conditions look right, then I’ll try to squeeze in a bit of time in the city with my camera. Sometimes I end up trying to do a bit of street photography when I’m out with the family, but it’s not always easy, I find I work best on my own as I’m able to concentrate more on my photography and not get distracted.

This time, however, I was only really able to squeeze in a few hours in the city centre to take pictures. To be honest though, it wasn’t a big problem. In the run-up to the New Year, the city centre is ridiculously busy. For the Spanish, the main celebrations are New Year and Twelfth Night, somewhat less so Christmas Day. And unlike the summer, where Sevillianos escape the heat and head off to cooler areas, everyone very much stays local. Which means the city centre can get incredibly busy (it’s one of the largest cities in Spain after all) and the roads can be a complete nightmare. Consequently, I find it quite difficult for photography as it’s really difficult to work a scene or concentrate on particular compositions with all the noise and bustle all around. Nonetheless, whilst I didn’t get anything I was particularly proud of, I did manage to get a few shots in the short amount of time I was able to spend in the city.

Every now and then I wandered down a side street and found some space from all the noise and had some opportunities to do a bit of fishing - waiting for someone to walk into the scene. Like this shot through the window of a bar/restaurant that was closed:

Or this shot looking through an empty commercial building:

And there were the odd street corners to make use of:

And, of course, just some standard street photography shots that really aren’t anything special…just fairly obvious opportunities that presented themselves to me as I was walking around.

I also managed to get some shots at nightfall, which is somewhat of an obsession with me at the moment. Of course, I had to be careful taking photos at night in a vibrant part of the city (we spent the evening around Alameda - a part of the city that is the go to area for nightlife) and opportunities were few and far between as it was more of a social thing. Nonetheless, I managed to get a handful of shots I was pleased with (if not my strongest photos of 2022).

This one would have been nice if someone popped up in the window. Sadly no-one inside came over to look outside…probably because they saw someone loitering in the street with a camera…

Still, someone walked past at least…

Of course, it wasn’t all photography, we had plenty of family, festive fun too…eating and drinking way too much, as is standard practice this time of year. I’ll spare you the family photos, but here’s a few shots taken during the festivities…

It had been a few years since I last ate migas, and was pleased to be able to experience it once more. A hefty dish, it is primarily made of breadcrumbs with a variety of meats (ribs, pork belly and streaks in this case) and peppers and garlic. One thing I’ve learnt over the years is not to overdo it on the tapas before the migas comes out…you’ve got no chance finishing it off if you do!

So that was Christmas/New Year. But how did I get on with the Peak Design backpack I purchased before we went away? Well, it worked out really well. I had dithered over which size to get, but the 20l option was perfect for taking my XT-3, three lenses, my laptop, my iPad, accessories and a couple of books. Looks like I’ve finally found the perfect bag for travelling to and from Spain. So that was a bit of a result too. Should also work quite nicely for day trips out, so overall it seems to have been a pretty good investment. Hopefully, no more camera bags!