"If You Can See the Lights, Shout Out Where You'll Be"
"If You Can See the Lights, Shout Out Where You'll Be" - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/400 sec
In my previous post I mentioned what an awesome photo walk I'd had after my day job on Friday. I mentioned picking up a new technique, in the comments of Steve Huff's awesome Leica site, that street photographers use and said I'd share some of my images with you in my next post.
The technique is called shooting from the hip and it's quite difficult to do with a range finder camera, well it's at least more difficult to get good results because of the lack of autofocus on the lenses. Of course, I use a Leica D-Lux 4, for now, so I have the luxury of autofocus when I choose to use it. Friday was the first day I went out with "shoot from the hip" etched into my neural cortex, and I think I just got lucky.
This is one of the shots I consider lucky. It was taken at the end of the evening as I'd crossed the street from the centre of Piccadilly Circus to the front of what we all remember as Tower Records. They're busy staring up at the lights, except for one of them of course. It all happened so quickly, and I only found myself in this position through sheer luck as the crowds met at the middle of the street I just ended up right on the right hand side of the pavement near the railing that they were standing behind gazing up at the electronic signs. None of them were actually completely stationary when I took this shot, and it could have been quite easy to catch her in mid sentence on the phone with her mouth in some unflattering position.
Will I go out and shoot from the hip next time? Well I did! The very next day at Camden Town. I will post some of those soon too, including a photograph of someone who isn't a big fan of having his photograph taken. If you are as curious as I was to know more about the t-shirt the woman is wearing you can read about it here
Blogging inspiration was provided by Simple Minds' See The Lights ♫
