35mm Street is the street photography blog by award winning photographer Derek Clark. It features tutorials, tips and tricks and lots of pictures from an experienced street photographer.
Remember this shot from the summer? I just posted a new episode of The Digital Contact Sheet that looks at the process of shooting this frame and the 24 before it. You can see the contact sheet and the file straight out of camera.
I also have a new black and white documentary story called Fashion Consciousness published on the Kage Collective site today that takes a look backstage at a fashion event.
More night shots again, but this time using reflections. I was about to wrap it up for the day, but decided to give myself a little assignment and only shoot people reflected in glass for the last 10 or 15 minutes. The funal shot was taken on the train on the way home.
No reason to stop shooting street just because the sun goes down. Just stay close to shop fronts and use the light from their big windows. There's also less chance of being seen if you're standing in the shadows. A good fast prime lens is essential for this though. These were al taken with the Fuji X-T1 and 35mm f1.4.
Christmas has come and gone once more and 2015 is almost here. It's at this point we tent to look back at the year past and plan ahead for the one on the way. 2014 has flown past so quick and in a lot of ways I feel I have talked so much about photography, but not shot nearly enough. I've had some good things happen this year, like becoming an official Fuji X-Photographer and shooting some amazing musicians for Project Jazz. But I feel I could have been more productive and I'm busy making lists of things I want to do or try in 2015. I need to set aside regular times for shooting on the streets, but there are other types of photography that I want to do more of and a few that I want to tick off from my bucket list. I also have a list of documentary projects that I need to confirm. All of these street shots were taken with the X-T1 and the 35mm f1.4. I haven't switched from my preferred X100S, but just thought I'd have a bit of a change and the 1.4 came in handy on these dark days.
I'd like to thank all of you that follow this street photography blog and if you are one of the many new followers, welcome aboard. I'll try to do more regular posts this coming year and over at my photography blog HERE. Thanks especially to those of you that sent emails with very kind comments on the pictures I post here. I'm always blwn away by the value some of you place on them and I never never never take that for granted. It's these emails, likes and comments that keep me posting here. I hope you all have a great time over the festive season and a fantastic new year. I have more pictures shot around the Xmas season that I'll post next week. Happy new year to you all and best of luck for 2015.
As the name of this blog would suggest, I usually shoot street photography with a 35mm lens. But after some random shooting while trying out the latest 50-140mm f2.8 zoom from Fuji, I naturally was drawn to the city streets. I can't say I felt comfortable walking around with what is a 75-210mm in full frame terms, and a bit too big and obvious for street photography. But I enjoyed the change and once again this lens blew me away with it's sharpness and quick auto focus. You can see some of these in colour by clicking HERE. Looking at these pictures, I find it interesting that I came away with the same shots I would have with a 35mm lens, I just stood further away. It just shows that we frame the shots with our eye, not with the lens. I also shot some portraits and reviewed this lens HERE.
I spent 45 minutes shooting on the streets today with the Fuji X-T1 and the 56mm f1.2. As the name of this blog suggests, I like to shoot street with a 35mm focal length, so with the 56mm coming out at 85mm (with the 1.5 crop), this was way different from what I usually shoot (on the street anyway). I fired off a shot to see how my exposure was looking. As I was in Aperture Priority Mode it was really to see if I needed any exposure compensation. A woman was walking in front of me and I stopped and took a shot of the back of her head (it was only for exposure after all). When the shot was previewed for half a second in my viewfinder I could see that not only did this lens look stunning, but the X-T1 focuses really quick. My settings were Auto ISO 3200 with a minimum shutter speed of 1/125th sec and my aperture was set to f2.8. Usually I would be shooting street photography with my X100 at f8 to give me a bit of leeway with the focus and moving subjects, but this was a new experience in the world of X.
I was curious to see if the 23mm f1.4 would perform as well, and if the X-T1 would become my new go to camera for street, even though I had no intention of this new body being my street camera. But to be honest, I was enjoying the 56mm too much and I decided that the 23mm would have to wait for another day when it could have the X-T1 all to it's self. So I'm sure that will be my next blog post here soon.
Feel free to ask any questions about the X-T1 in the comments.
