My First Attempt at Street Photography
Gary Detonnancourt
I typically shoot with a Canon R5 but I’m just loving the shooting experience with this Fujifilm XT-3 and Canon FD Lenses.
I’ve shot many types of photography over the last twenty or so years and if you look through my website you’ll see that I mostly shoot wildlife, portraits, and some landscapes. Recently I guess I’ve been a little burned out because I haven’t been shooting much at all, of course, that could also be because my life has been quite hectic lately. Things have begun to settle down a bit and I’ve been getting the bug to get out and shoot again.
Canon FD 24 mm F/2.8 on a Fugifilm XT-3
The recent Youtube videos I’ve been watching have been about vintage lenses and street photography, both of which are totally new to me. I thought these two things would probably go great together and I should give them a go.
For the images you will see in this article, I used the 24 mm lens at F/8 and set the focus to infinity and I didn’t have to make any adjustments for all of my images to come out in focus. Not having to focus allowed me to compose and shoot very quickly.
I recently purchased the Canon FD 24 mm F/2.8 and the 50 mm F/1.4 and the Fotasy FD to Fuji X adapter to put them on my Fujifilm XT-3. I also purchased a Canon FD to RF adapter so I could use the lenses on my R5.
I just love the look and feel of these lenses, even though they are from the 80s they feel high quality, and the manual focus experience is buttery smooth. Plus focus peaking on the XT-3 makes manually focusing very easy.
My plan was to visit a local city and to look for interesting locations with good light and hope to capture people moving through these scenes. What I learned was it’s not as easy as it sounds. Finding interesting places in good light with people is quite challenging and fun. I wanted high-contrast black-and-white images but I also didn’t want to lock myself into just one type of photo so I shot raw files and processed them in Lightroom CC on my Ipad.
This was the first image of the day and I liked it because I caught the dog in action and I like the long shadows on the brick.
I’m also new to the whole iPad editing workflow. I like it because you can work directly on the image with the Apple pencil and it’s fun to be able to edit anywhere I want and not have to be tied to a desktop computer. I found that I can do most of what I can do with Lightroom Classic and it’s pretty fast and easy. I also really like that the images as synced to all of my devices through the cloud.
My next image was more inline with what I was looking for, a high-contrast black and white image with an interesting person walking through an interesting place. The gesture he makes with his hand makes the image for me.
If you like the look of the processing in this image, here is the link to purchase this Lightroom Preset, so you can try it out on your images.
I liked this scene because of the colors and leading lines taking you to the Capital building.
This wasn’t my favorited image of the day but I did capture a typical city scene.
I mostly like this image because of the sun star produced by the Canon FD 24 mm lens.
This is my favorite image of the day. I love the diagonal line of shadows leading to the man in the wheelchair. The fact that he is wearing a mask adds a story to the image as the city deals with a lingering pandemic.
This may not be a typical street image because it looks like she is smiling for the camera, but it actually was a totally candid shot.
I’m not really sure why I like this image but I do. I think it’s the balance feeling of the composition.
I walked passed this finely dressed gentlemen and he seemed to be just waiting there ready to pose for a photographer and it may look sort of posed but it was totally candid.
Same shot taken from the opposite direction.
This one caught my eye because of the shape of the tree and the sun star.
This is my second favorite image of the day. I like the juxtaposition of the Indian couple walking past the Native American murial.
At the end of my photo walk I stopped at a coffee shop and I just loved the look of this girl. I think here outfit tells an interesting story.
I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at street photography, I certainly did. This surprised me quite a bit because I’m not big on cities. However, I found the photographic techniques of hunting and gathering to be fun and very challenging.
