In late January 2013, Doug Kaye and I headed for Cuba – for a week long people-to-people cultural exchange organized by the excellent folks at Santa Fe Photography Workshops. We had a splendid time, got some amazing pictures, and met some wonderful people – especially the Cuban professional photographers who accompanied us out into the neighborhoods of Havana.
We stayed at a great hotel in central Havana. It was a wonderful home base for us – very comfortable and clean rooms. On our last morning in Havana I was up early – and took this shot looking down at the street corner below from my room on the 5th floor of the hotel.
I’ve been experimenting with a number of post-processing techniques for taking images to monochrome – and this one seemed to work out particularly well.
Last Friday morning I had a business meeting in downtown San Francisco – just a couple of blocks away from SFMOMA – the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I have been wanting to catch the Garry Winogrand photography exhibition before the museum closes shortly for a three year makeover – so I headed for SFMOMA once the meeting finished.
The Winogrand exhibition is massive in its scope – and striking in so many ways to a novice like me. All black and white – beginning on the streets of New York City and ending up in the deserts of the southwest, and the political conventions and beaches of California – Winogrand’s images are so “in the moment”. That notion – the decisive moment – seems to define the essence of great street photography – and it’s strikingly shown in his work.
From an earlier time, there’s the differences in dress and – strikingly – the effect of cigarette smoke in so many of his images. He was amazingly prolific – must have appeared almost to be non-stop – and seemingly uncaring toward the processing – and, indeed, any editing – of his images. One wonders what he’d be like today with an iPhone camera in his hand – or Google Glass on his forehead – snapping away! The exhibition closes shortly – and is then on to shows in Washington, at the Met in New York City and then on to Paris.
As I was leaving, I visited the SFMOMA Museum Store and happened across this book – How to Read a Photograph: Lessons from Master Photographers by Ian Jeffrey. I thumbed through it – finding it to be a treasure of photographers’ work from the late 1800’s to perhaps a decade ago. It’s wonderfully illustrated with the great images from the photographers that Jeffrey decided to profile – and a delight to just pickup and browse – sort of like one of those annual almanacs but dedicated to great photographers and their work – including Winogrand.
When I got home, I checked on Amazon.com and found mostly good reviews – and a bargain price on the book (currently $15) compared to the $37.50 I paid for my copy at the Museum Store. If you’re interested in diving a bit deeper into the history of some of the great photographers of the last hundred years, I highly recommend this book. You’ll enjoy it.
Note: I only include items here that I actually use and are worthy of my recommendation – there is no sponsorship involved. I do participate in a number of affiliate programs that compensate me if you find an item and decide to purchase it because of one of my links. You won’t pay any more – it’s just the affiliate’s way of saying thank you for a referral. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Here’s an image I shot at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Saturday morning as I was heading to the annual San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day parade. The whole Yerba Buena Center complex is a photographers delight – chock full of interesting people, some amazing textures, waterfalls, trees and lawn – you name it, it’s all here in a bit less than a city block!
For the last several years, my primary camera has been a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR. It’s a wonderful camera and has done an amazing job for me. I’ve got a collection of Canon prime and zoom lenses for that camera that work beautifully and have helped me capture some beautiful images. I have lots of wonderful memories of trips to venues around the west with my Canon! (Check out my Cool Tools page for details on my favorite gear!)
In January, Doug Kaye and I headed to Havana, Cuba to participate in a person-to-person cultural exchange program organized by the great folks at Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. Along with our workshop colleagues, we had an amazing week in Havana – and I had a blast getting into the world of street photography which was pretty much a new experience for me.
A few months before the Cuba trip, I bought a new Nikon D600 – shortly after this new camera body was introduced. In particular, I was interested because of the early reviews and reports about the D600’s Sony sensor – and its wider dynamic range. Dynamic range describes the range of the camera’s sensor in accurately capturing whites to blacks – and the D600 ranked very highly at being able to capture one of the widest dynamic ranges. For a lot of my kind of photography, that dynamic range is important – so I opted to get the D600. I was also stimulated by my friend Doug Kaye’s Nikon passion and the fact that on many of the photo shoots we do together he brings along his wide assortment of Nikon lenses!
For the Havana trip, I mostly shot with the D600 kit lens – Nikon’s 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens – and it did a fabulous job. I mostly left the D600 on auto everything (ISO, Focus, P mode, etc.) and just shot away. I got some great shots – the camera did an wonderful job.
Recently, I decided to get the Nikon lens that seems to be everyone’s favorite for street photography on Nikon DSLR camera bodies – the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. On Saturday, I took this one lens up to San Francisco to shoot the annual San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day parade and, along the way, snapped this self-portrait image in the window at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This is a great lens for street photography – the combination of its ability to go reasonably wide along with its ability to do a long zoom make for a near perfect lens for daytime street photography. Here’s another example of using the reach of this lens.
I’m still trying to master the autofocus options on my D600 – especially for street photography. The “double vision” in this image has nothing to do with those – it’s just the glass! – but I’m convinced that once I master those the D600 and this 28-300mm lens with be my ideal street photography rig. I’m anxious to do more exploring with it!
I felt a bit like I was back in Havana watching some of the classic cars that turned out yesterday to carry dignitaries in the annual Saint Patrick’s Day parade in San Francisco. This 1947 Chevrolet was one of the beauties!
I had fun processing this image in Photoshop – tweaking the background a bit to bring the car out more and adjusting the luminosity a bit. I love the angle of the car – the beauty of the chrome on the front grill – and that tail flying off of the radio antenna!
I had a good time yesterday shooting the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in San Francisco. This is a big parade – and folks have a great time watching and participating!
I parked at the Fifth and Mission Garage and then walked over to Market by way of Yerba Buena Gardens (my first stop – see yesterday’s image). Eventually, I got to Second and Market where the parade begins to stage – and where the light coming down Second St. was just great. (Much of the parade route is actually in the shade heading up Market St. because of the buildings blocking the sun on the south side of Market).
While watching and waiting, I noticed this fellow heading toward me and snapped a couple of quick shots of him – this one being the best. He looked great with his hair, shades and all!
This morning I headed up to San Francisco to try my hand at some street photography during the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. This parade is a big deal in San Francisco – and it was my first time heading out to try to shoot it. In hand, I had my Nikon D600 with the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II AF-S Nikkor Zoom Lens that I’d recently acquired. This lens seems close to ideal for street photography – it has that extra reach at 300mm yet can go wide at 28mm when required. It’s about as perfect a lens as it gets for daytime street shooting.
But, before the parade began, I headed to another one of my favorite San Francisco venues – Yerba Buena Gardens. As I left Menlo Park this morning, we were fogged in – and I wondered what I would encounter weather wise as I got to San Francisco. As it turned out, no fog and brilliant morning sunlight washed across the beautiful Yerba Buena scene.
As I headed into the gardens, I noticed a lot of steam rising from over by the waterfall. As I headed closer, I could see a fellow was using a high pressure water blaster to clean the payment around the waterfall. This turned into a classic example of a “stage” – a place where you think something interesting is going to happen and you plant yourself as a photographer and just wait for it to unfold.
Earlier, he was working in the shadows to the left – a relatively uninteresting area given the poor light. But when he came out into this area – and began working the pavement and tiles being lit by the morning sun, everything got a lot more interesting. As I was shooting it, I thought this would probably work out best as a monochrome – but I left in just a touch of selective color on the worker’s face and hair. Such beautiful light!
My friend Chris Gulker taught me late in his life to pay attention to light and shadows. It’s a way of seeing – being focused on the contrasts we see. Another thing I’ve learned to pay attention to are puddles – as they open another window on a subject. Often with an unusual perspective.
After we got back from Cuba, Doug Kaye and I headed to Embarcadero Center in San Francisco for another photo walk. This has become one of our favorite venues – so much great light, angles, people, and other delightful stuff.
As we were getting started this particular morning, we headed out southeast of the Ferry Building and started noticing the puddles along the way. Ah, reflections!
While Doug was capturing this shot – shooting with an Olympus OM-D, I captured him.
Every few months, I try to mix things up a bit here by changing the header image at the top of my blog. You can see the history of those images on this page – dating all the way back to January 2004.
For this latest update, I chose one of my favorites images from my recent trip to Cuba – one titled “Happy New Year” because of the words written on the wall just above the sidewalk. While out in the central Havana neighborhood on a Sunday in January, my photo buddy Doug Kaye happened to notice the writing and the scene behind. We stood on the opposite side of the street – treating the venue as a “stage” – and waited for the world to walk by.
But before getting to South Beach that Tuesday morning, we went to South Pointe Park – and walked around the point along the beach. It was a beautiful morning – one of those amazing days in the middle of winter where you realize why some folks really like living in Miami – and you’re envious!
Along the way, we captured some beach scenes – including this one above of a bicycle hitched up to a post.
And, below, another shot – of my photo buddy Doug Kaye as we were shooting each other on the beach!
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that I’d recently acquired. This lens seems close to ideal for street photography – it has that extra reach at 300mm yet can go wide at 28mm when required. It’s about as perfect a lens as it gets for daytime street shooting.
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