Not quite "street" photography. Let's call it "market" photography instead. What can you do with a 50mm lens and a decade old camera?

 

I have to admit right up front that grabbing photographs of people in crowded markets is much, much easier when using a state of the art mirrorless camera equipped with a fast zoom lens. You can raise that camera up to your eye and click without having to do any brain work beyond composition. And that may actually make the most sense if your sole concern is finding the perfect composition. But it also, at least for me, makes the whole process too easy. It's like eating chocolate cake all day long. You just know every bite is going to be fun but you start to miss the substance of real food. 

This post is by no means a paean to the Leica M series rangefinder cameras. The idea of shooting with manual focus lenses on a body with the exposure setting at manual is something I have done and shown over and over again on the VSL blog. My collection of old, manual focus 50mm lenses is becoming legend among my photo friends. It's the not the brand or type of camera that I find important to my enjoyment of photography but the layers of skill required, beyond setting the auto everything camera menus, that keeps my attention focused on making the images instead of just pointing and grabbing at stuff with an automated system. In my world; my brain, there has to be some sort of friction to the process to make it meaningful and real to me.

In a way that's separate from whether the images are good or not. It's also a separate issue from whether your camera is the "silver bullet" or not. What I'm suggesting is that having to work at the production of art immerses you more completely and the challenge is part of the formula for having successful imaging fun. 

I've mentioned in a number of the posts I've recently written about my trip that my daily photographic excursions were all done with only one camera and one lens at a time. Occasionally, as in the photos I wanted to take of the Metro, I might have seen a number of situations while walking around with a 50mm lens where I knew that a wide angle lens, like a 28mm, might make a better choice than a normal lens. Rather than make those scenes try to conform to the 50mm, and rather than stuffing other lenses into my already crowded pockets before leaving my hotel for the day, I chose to concentrate on all the subjects what would readily conform to the 50mm angle of view and then make a mental note to come back later, perhaps the next day, with a different lens and use it to capture all the wide angle views I might have seen. 

It might seem more "efficient/logical" to just take along contingency lenses but in my experience if I mostly shoot with a 50mm and decide to add a 28mm my mind immediately rebels and starts seeing more and more stuff that might be perfect for a 90mm lens as well and then the equipment starts to multiple and that burden creates a momentum toward making choices that kills the purity of intention --- in the moment.

You may see it differently from me because your brain might be wired differently than mine. These thoughts aren't intended to be hard and fast rules for everyone. Just the way I work.

The photographs I'm displaying here were mostly done in a couple of hours last Saturday. Some, like the marching chefs in the street, were done later in the evening, elsewhere. But they mesh with the topic a bit so I included them.

The M cameras work particularly well with 50mm lenses. The floating frame, with information on all around the outside peripheries, is an aid to the way I compose. I like to see what more or less could be included as I frame. And I do frame stuff quickly. The M cameras are, to my experience, less than perfect for 28mm subjects in that I can't see the frame lines  in the finder at all while wearing glasses, but even with a diopter attached I have to move my naked eye around the frame to accurately see the inaccurate frame lines for the 28mm. The 35mm and 50mm lenses are the only two that work very well with the optical finders of M cameras with my vision. In order to get the most out of my M mount 28mm lens I should really buy a good, 28mm bright line finder to put in the hot shoe of the camera. But I won't because I can always go back to the hotel, toss the M camera in the safe and trot out the Q2 which promises (and delivers) a much better operational platform for the 28mm focal length. 

I was neither "on" nor "off" last Saturday. I was lazier than I usually am and my hit rate was lower. But I scolded myself for being goal or quota driven and decided that casual observation and the enjoyment of my time spent at that location was more important than making some sort of temporary documentation to share mostly with people I have never met in person. And once I gave in to the idea of enjoying versus working at photos everything started to look much better. Insouciance can be a great tool for creative undertakings.