Big Hair day

Street Portrait

A recent street portrait, one I made today actually (9/11/2021) saw this guy in my local town couldn’t let him pass without asking if I could take his portrait, he was happy to pose for me and I ended up taking a few. Shot with my Canon 40D and Canon EF 24mm f2.8 lens @ ISO 200, aperture priority @ f6.3. I like this lens for street photography, on the 40D its close to a 35mm in full frame focal length terms, (full frame for me means I didn’t crop the image 😀) its a similar set up to the Fuji X100 series, same size sensor and more or less same focal length lens, only the Canon 40D has a focusing system that works. 😀 And I have the option to change lenses. Did I mention its a lot cheaper too. 😀 And I can give it a retro style look to match the subject, thanks to Silver efex...

Shot in raw mode, processed in Lightroom, b/w using Silver efex pro

Art V Camera

I rarely see anything online about the art of photography, everything seems to be about the equipment, more so than the actual imagery itself, the content, framing, subject etc. I see people talking and discussing all kinds of things from image quality, lens distortions, corner sharpness, resolution, pixel count, high iso performance etc, (how often do you take photos in dark caves?) I don’t know about you but if I go to look at a photographic exhibition the last thing I’m interested in or looking for is any of these things! I don’t take a magnifying glass looking for corner sharpness or lack of! In fact I often like to put a vignette on my portraits, so what use is corner sharpness, just pointless measurements nothing to do with making good photography. And I don’t waste my time examining photos of brick walls looking for barrel distortions either! 

The internet, You tube etc is awash with self appointed experts doing reviews about this or that lens, this or that camera…YAWN. Most cameras are capable of taking decent quality images today, never mind looking for the next bit of kit that’s going to “improve your photography” you could buy an old Canon eos 350D for £40 with an equally priced Canon ef 18-55 lens and make good photography, on the other end you could go and spend thousands on the latest kit but its not going to give you great images, only you can do that, a camera is an inanimate object, a tool. “The photographer is the instrument not the camera” – Eve Arnold.

Yes, you need a certain level of technical knowledge/ability but its not rocket science, digital has made things easier in that respect. The most important thing is to enjoy your photography, do it for yourself no one else, and we are all learning all the time, one could be a hundred years old and learn something new, anyone who thinks he or she “knows it all” has already lost, stay hungry! I’m more interested in the end results, the art of photography, doesn’t matter how you get there, what you used. 

Here’s a recent street portrait I did with my 15 year old Canon 40D, and a Canon ef 24mm f2.8 lens from the 80’s! Which is more like a 35mm focal length on the 40D’s APS-C size sensor. Which was chosen by the Lensculture editors to include in their online gallery.

'The butterfly effect'

 

Cropping? Resolution? Upgrade?

To crop or not to crop? I went through a stage of loving the cropping, I would see many images within images, btw even if you don’t crop, you are still in fact cropping as the image is just a small crop of the wider vision available to the eye. However I have gone right off the idea of cropping my images, now I prefer to get it right, just as I want it at the point of taking. Cropping reduces the resolution (especially when I’m still using a 10mp camera) which could be a problem if I wanted to print large, also with cropping I end up with odd sized images, which could also present a problem when printing and presenting your work.

It often amuses me when photographers talk about resolution, pixel count as if it’s the most important thing, when most hardly ever make prints, and just share their images online, so what does it matter? In fact when photographers start talking about equipment I often yawn and feel like walking away! My first dslr was a Canon 10D 6.3 mp and the A3 prints from it were very nice, it’s rare I print larger than A3 size. It was just a bit slow to use, I then got a 30D but the actual camera felt small in my hand even with the extra battery grip attached, so I got a Canon 40D slightly bigger and has a decent size and feel to it. The 40D is an old camera now, but I’m still using it together with some Canon and Sigma lenses. 

I’ve been having thoughts of upgrading, maybe getting a 7D (I do like the idea of having a 100% viewfinder, as I enjoyed with my old 35mm film cameras, EOS 1N etc) or maybe a Canon 5D mk2 or 3, but then I would have to spend loads of money on lenses to take full advantage of the full frame sensor, expensive! Most of my lenses I have now are designed just for the crop sensor cameras. The 7D has the same size sensor as the 40D but with more pixels in it, probably a faster engine behind it too, but I always shoot in raw, so would I see much difference in the end image quality? And I don’t need video on it, I am into still images also I have a Lumix LX100 which shoots 4K video. 

Some guy on instagram asked me what my “set up was” on one of my street portraits, the same image I have posted here, I said an old Canon 40D and an old Sigma lens, it’s a nice lens, light and compact too. I think he was a bit disappointed and was expecting something more high end, more expensive, he unfollowed me after I told him, Haha. People get too bogged down with the equipment and technical side, usually newbie’s, they think its all about the equipment! Off course we all enjoy the gear side to a certain extent, but the more experienced you become, the more you realize its simply a tool, and the 40D is a tool that doesn’t get in the way of making photos, and the image quality is more than adequate. 

At the end of the day it’s about the image, the content, the framing etc, doesn’t really matter how you got there. Most cameras today will take decent quality images, I’m not the sort of photographer who would take a magnifying glass to a gallery with me to check out corner sharpness! who cares about that boring stuff in the real world? Think I will stick with what I’ve got for the time being, if money was no object I suppose I would be getting all kinds of equipment to play with, maybe a large format film view camera and a professional neg scanner, that would give you plenty of pixels! And the money I save I could spend on travelling and actually taking photos, rather then talking about equipment.    

Btw, here’s an excellent review of the Canon 40D by a fellow photographer and blogger... Photographic Central Link

 

 

Heres a recent one taken with my Canon 40D & Sigma 18 - 50mm f2.8 (throughout the zoom) EX Lens, at the long end wide open @ f2.8 iso 400. I always shoot in raw, process in lightroom, maybe tweak a bit in photoshop if needed. Often I find they need little work on them from what comes out the camera.

 

My Exhibitions

'Hull fair 2023' One of my street shots/social documentary @ The Ferens Art Gallery Open Exhibition, Hull. 28^th June to 22^nd Sept 2024.

'More then a River' 1 & 2, two of my Cityscapes in the Summer Salon @ the Islington Arts Factory, London. 21^st June to 12^th July, 2019.

'Street Portraits' A varied collection of interesting characters I have come across during my travels, taken over a few years in Hull, Leeds, London and N.Y. City @ my pop up gallery in Hull City Centre. July & August 2018.

'Lower Manhattan' N.Y. Cityscape @ the Ferens Art Gallery Open Exhibition, Hull. 17 February to 22 April 2018.

‘River Hull’ b/w print @ The Ferens Art Gallery Open Exhibition. 21 January 2017 to 12 March 2017. (Hull U.K. City of Culture 2017)

'Street Life' Capturing moments, a collection of my street photography taken over the past few years in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Bradford, Scarborough, Leeds and my home City of Hull. @ The Islington Arts Factory, London. 6th - 27th May, 2016.

‘Spurn Point’ a series of landscapes/seascapes taken on Spurn Point, an area of natural beauty on the East Yorkshire Coast. @ Artlink, Hull. Jan, 2014.

'Leeds Canal' Cityscape. Northern Arts Uncovered, a collaborative show @ Gallery Munro House, Leeds. 21 April, 2012.

'Leeds Cityscape' @ Leeds City Art Gallery Open Exhibition 2005.

'Various Landscapes' @ the Eich Gallery, George Street, Hull. Part of the University of Lincoln. (Now the site of Trinity House Academy) 2003.

‘Poetry through the Lens’ this was a collaborative show with a writer friend of mine Brian Iles, I put together my visual interpretations of his poetry, a series of b/w images done on medium format film @ The Waterways Museum, Goole. 22 March-30 May, 2003. Also shown at Hull Central Library & the Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe.

‘Coast to Coast’ various landscapes/cityscapes of New York City & San Francisco @ Room 58, Exhibition Barge, Hull Marina. 4 June-18 July, 2002.

‘Images of the Humber’ some of my early works, a series of b/w images taken along the Humber Estuary @ Sewerby Hall near Bridlington. Nov-Dec, 98. Also shown at the Waterways museum in Goole, and some other venues arranged via Artlink, Hull.

 

 

A bit about me.

As an experienced photographer, (I have done it professionally but am just into the art side of it now) I use and enjoy the medium to express my artistic vision. Sometimes I indulge in Cityscapes, but my passion is street photography. I exhibit my work in both solo and collaborative shows. My last solo exhibition was a collection of my Street Portraits @ my pop up gallery in Hull City Centre, where it was well received, lots of great comments... "I’ve enjoyed looking at your photos more then a lot of art I’ve seen" I have also exhibited at established galleries such as the Islington Arts Factory, and the Greenpoint gallery in NYC, amongst others. My Cityscapes sell well wherever I have had them on show. With street portraits I'm often drawn to people living on the edges of society, eccentric characters etc and I enjoy engaging with them in the process.

It's an ongoing project, I have a large body of work which is constantly updating, growing. While walking and exploring with my camera I get lost in my own world and thoughts, it's almost a form of meditation, I photograph anything that inspires me at the time, be it a street shot, a portrait or a Cityscape. Street photography is recording social documentary in real time, ergo today's street photography is tomorrow's social history. I don't like to over contextualize my work, I prefer the viewer brings their own experiences and interpretations, we all see differently. "Art is not about something, art is something" - Sarah Bernhardt. Mostly using Instagram now for sharing my work, all my latest images can be seen there: @ Streetshootertim

 Contact info:

I am based in Hull, East Yorkshire, UK

Email: timev@gmx.com

Street Portrait

One of my recent street Portraits, a colourful girl in China town, London. Late September, 2020. I vary my tactics with street photography, sometimes I engage with people, sometimes I just grab the shot and carry on walking. Obviously with street portraits one has to have some kind of conversation with the subject. I find most people are happy to pose. I used a bit of flash for this one as it was getting dark, and it helped to bring out the colours more. Taken with a Canon 40D and a 24mm f2.8 prime lens, on the crop sensor of the 40D its approx 38/40mm focal length in 35mm film terms, which I like for street work. Though I use various lenses, inbetween 24mm to 80mm range, I dont have much use for long lenses and rarely go beyond 80mm