I was so worried that I was "pre-visualizing" my black and white shots wrong that I almost missed the shots...

All "stranger" images shot today around 5:30 pm. Post processed and uploaded right after dinner. 

Shoot a lot. Get then done quick. Learn a lot. 

Photographing in the streets takes a different sort of ambivalent disregard for personal space. The top four images here were all done of strangers I met today on 3rd St. while using a 21mm lens on a Leica SL2. You have to be close to fill the frame with a 21mm. Like...really close. After working with the 21mm for most of this afternoon lenses like the 28mm and 35mm seem almost claustrophobic. But I think the wider lens yields a more dramatic image. And you really have to get "buy in" from your subjects...

I didn't stop to consider how my camera was seeing. Whether or not, like the proverbial "bear in the woods", it has the potential to shoot color if I have it set instead for monochrome. I presumed that whatever I set in camera the camera was going to come along for the ride. Some cameras are better in monochrome than others. I never, ever could find a nice, in-camera, combination of parameter settings or tweaks in my Sony or Nikon cameras. The Fuji film simulations could be absolutely great. But the Leica SL and SL2 are in a totally different league. I go for the BW HC (high contrast) settings and actually add more contrast. The files come out exactly as I would have done them with traditional film except that they are sharper and better. 

The secret to mastering any function of any camera is to learn what it can do by relentless trial and error. Sitting in a chair looking at samples on the internet doesn't actually transmit the hard earned  knowledge you need to have in order to really "know" what's going to happen with the files every time you push the shutter button. But five or ten thousand photographs, shot the way you usually work, and shooting nearly everyday, will give you a much more intimate perspective concerning what to expect from your camera when you use it as a black and white instrument. In fact, you never have to turn on the color....if you don't want to.

Blog author self-portrait using an SL2 with a super cheap, super old Canon 50mm f1.8 FD lens. Camera set to monochrome, appropriately tweaked, and executed at ISO 12,500. Nice, crunchy grain.

This camera has become my Leica SL2 Monochrome. In an emergency I can push a hidden, secret button and get color. But...it really has to be a psychic emergency.  

How confident are you in shooting strangers on the street up close, with a 21mm lens? 

Do you believe your camera when it tells you it can shoot in black and white?


Who or what is in control of your photographic process?

 

Seen on the web today. A smart article about portraiture along with a wonderful portfolio of photographs.

 https://www.orartswatch.org/picture-this-notes-on-photographic-portraiture/

If you are sitting at your desk working on actuarial tables, fact checking your colleague's latest paper on accelerating erosion or typing up a pithy comment about cameras having their color stripped away from them and you are feeling a bit ..... vague, you may want to take a few minutes to hit the link above.

It's an article about the nature of portrait photography by an artist and writer I know who has sometimes visited the VSL blog. His name is Kenneth Dixon and I love the way he writes. And the way he thinks about portraiture. He sometimes goes by K.B. Dixon. 

I've reviewed several of this books on the blog in the past. 

I have no affiliation other than a respect for both of the genres of art in which he works. And I'm happy to know two great writers who hang out here from time to time.

Take a break. Read the article. It's calming.