It's been a great weekend to be alive and to be a photographer. At least for me, here in Austin. Belinda and I celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary, I watched Ben run well in a 5K race. I shot a wonderful job on Saturday evening for a long time and very appreciative client. Belinda, the dog and I had a long walk this morning and breakfast all together at Trianon Coffee House.
Then I headed downtown to see what the Austin Art Festival was all about. I expected to be underwhelmed but I went away feeling really positive about the art I saw and really happy to live in a town that lives its art. The city blocked off several major streets and a bridge for the art festival and artists from all over the U.S. were there.
I strolled around with a camera and made candid images of people that I found interesting. I think the gentleman in the image above was one of the artists who had a tent in the show. He was taking a break in a section set aside for food and refreshments. He was engaged in conversation with a friend but he looked up at me. I raised my eyebrows and my camera. He gave me a small nod and went back to his conversation. I shot ten very quick frames (not hard to do with an a77 on continuous high), smiled and walked away. When I looked at the images later this afternoon I was very please with all ten in the series. This one seems to catch him just as he's about to speak. And I like that.
I made the image with a Sony a77 camera and a 55 to 200mm Sony DLT zoom lens. I tend to keep the aperture of most of my lenses near wide open and shoot in aperture priority. The aperture was f5.6 at 1/800th of a second. ISO 400. I like the contrast the man's hat makes with the bright area behind him and I love the tilt of his head.
I used the camera's black and white function, which I think is pretty darn good, but it always needs just a bit more contrast and a bit more black. Reminds me of Tri-X, if I go ahead and add in a little grain.
