Street photo story

elle walker
Oct 13, 2018
3 min read

Updated: Jan 15, 2019

My task: shoot in the style of Lee Friedlander

My tools: Fujifilm X-T20 camera. Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2. Fujifilm XF 18 - 55 mm f/2.8 - f/4. iPhone 6. Lightroom Classic CC.

My time limit: until it was time to go home, so a few hours, give or take

I had a great few hours wandering around Tate Modern and took several incredibly mediocre shots. When I went to the top of the building, horror of horrors, the camera locked up. In the eight months of ownership, this was the second time this had happened, the first being at Birmingham Pride. The shutter release just refused to work. I'd checked all my settings - ISO 200, f/16, aperture dial was okay - but...nothing. I checked one last thing and that worked, so I had no choice but to use it. Auto. I had to use Auto mode.I felt as though I was cheating.

For about thirty minutes I used Auto mode, whilst silently cursing the camera that I loved so much, wondering why oh why it would let me down just when I needed it most. Whilst in the lift on the way down from the top of the building, the camera started to work again. Typical.

Modern cameras are complex machines, with tiny computers and all manner of moving parts and electronic wizardry inside them, so it's not unusual for things to stop working from time to time. After the initial panic had worn off I could have seen it as a challenge and used my iPhone instead, allowing the camera to rest or whatever it is that cameras need when they're tired. No real harm was done and I managed to take a few shots so it wasn't completely dead and if it was, hey, that's what extended warranties are for, right?

Anyway, my Fuji is in rude health and ready to work, just like its owner.

It's taken some time, but I've now pulled together a few shots with the theme of Lines. I didn't revisit the shots for a long time as I was so disappointed the shoot, but now, with some distance, I can see that it wasn't as bad as I had fearered. As it was a lovely sunny day, I managed to capture some great shadows, which look much better when converted to black and white. I'd received some feedback on the contact sheet I'd created and, which gave me ideas how to edit them and which images to keep and which to discard.

All of these I'm ages were edited very simply in Lightroom CC by converting to Black & White and making adjustments in Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. A little refinement was done via the Tone Curve.

Some of the comments on the contact sheet. (assume the images are numbered 1 - 23, reading left to right, top to bottom)

"I like how they are the main focus" - number 12
"Good contrast and use of light" - number 15
"Main focus?" - number 6
"I like how you haven't shown the subject's face" - number 18

There were also comments about zooming in to focus on a specific item, but this wasn't always possible, as the lens I was shooting with was an 18-55mm, so I didn't always have the reach that was needed.

A sample of the images, pre-and-post production