This isn’t ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’, that would be stretching it a little, and it would be wrong to quote Charles Dickens opening lines “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. It would be true to say though that I had the best of times and visited two cities this week. I’ve often said on this blog and I’m fully aware not quite on the level of Dickens “Life is about people, everything else is just background”. I read something similar to that once and decided that it’s also true of photography, especially Street Photography. I know that those who like to produce ‘fine art’ Street Photography will disagree. Of course it makes sense that if you’re focussing on the production of images that purely rely on architectural elements or light as their main ingredient, perhaps with a singular example of humanity wandering through the scene, then background is everything. If you’re interested in people, which I believe Street Photography is about, then everything is just background apart from the all important actors, it’s simply scenery for life to be played out against. Now, as is customary with this blog I’m going to contradict myself, slightly. I still stand by my original statement, however perhaps somewhere in between is where I stand.
If the location isn’t providing plenty of footfall then regardless of the background it’s time to move on. We need a lot of people is the long and short of it, no matter where we happen to be. That opening shot was taken in Bristol this week and the one above in Bath the day before. So, two locations, two cities. If we follow my analogy of actors and scenery we’ll call them Act I and Act II. By the way, we might also name this blog post "The Colour Issue”, I’m keeping it real with only minor adjustments, even conversion to black and white is out. I’ve simply straightened the images.
Act I
The curtain rises: Our hero is looking at his BBC Weather App. “To photograph or not to photograph, that is the question”. Sunny spells it tells him. He mounts his magnificent steed and rides into Bath. Right, you’ll be relieved to hear that I’ve run out of steam with that theatrical/literature analogy! Let’s proceed normally, we’ll as normally as I can. As usual the BBC is totally wrong, even if they’re forecasting an hour or two ahead they can’t get it right. There was a brief sunny spell, I’ll give them that, the rest of my time I spent sheltering with the few tourists that were about under whatever we could find in order to prevent us drowning from the torrential rain or avoiding possible injury from the hail stones. Okay, that’s enough, this blog isn’t about me whinging about the weather, back to the point…
In a way the BBC did me a favour because although there were very few actors in Bath, there were plenty of people in close proximity whilst sheltering though, it also forced me to stay in one place and watch the world go by because as we all know “the whole world is a stage” :
Eventually I wandered out into the open and then it was a case of attempting to make some more shots with some really dismal, poor light. At times I felt as though I was shooting at night. It’s something we should all be able to do, it can’t always be perfect conditions. Here’s a very quick slideshow with a few of those attempts:
The lighting crew finally got their act together, momentarily at least and I grabbed what I could. I was up to ridiculously high ISO’s previously which to be honest my Leica isn’t entirely happy with. Another part of Dickens famous opening passage from ‘A tale of two cities’ goes like this “it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness”…I hear you Charles!
Bath is my go to location, especially once the winter is out of the way. Essentially I center around the Abbey and Roman Baths, or the Bus Station. The thousands of tourists/visitors will return, add that to the 176,000 inhabitants some of whom will be out shopping, plus the shop/office workers and all of sudden we’re in business, photographically speaking. It’s a different story in the winter months though and often it feels like a ghost town. Bristol on the other hand has a much larger population. It was for a long time unsuccessful for me with Street, however, over the last year or so it’s been the location where I’ve found my best Street shots. Our hero, soaking wet, mounts his trusty steed and rides home. Curtain falls. Interlude: Grab your ice creams, gin & tonics, powder your nose, have a smoke, the second Act is about to begin. I promise not to continue with this analogy, scouts honour.
Act II
Our main protagonist (I’m dropping the hero thing) doesn’t give his BBC Weather App a second look, ignored it completely, mounted his steed and headed for Bristol. He was never in the scouts by the way!
Apart from the fact it was actually dry, I felt much more optimistic and warmer too. Not such a touristy location, although they do get tourists, Bristol does have a population of over 535,000 inhabitants, plus a huge amount of office/shop workers. We need people and this is where they are if you’re living in my area. It takes 15 minutes to Bath or 30 minutes to Bristol, I’m going to start travelling to Bristol much more often, particular in the Winter months. It is a little trickier to shoot in Bristol compared to Bath where anyone walking around with a camera is ignored for the most part, you’re just another tourist. You can still get close though in Bristol, remember I’m still experimenting with the new 28mm lens, so this is fairly close:
Whether I’m in Bath or Bristol I follow more or less a predetermined path. I know most of the places where it’s likely I could get a shot, okay in some parts of Bristol it’s likely I could get shot! I’m kidding, as my friend Kev (who’s from Bristol) often says and I totally agree, nowhere in the world is that dodgy, providing there are people about you’re unlikely to get into any real trouble. Good news for Street Photographers because we want to keep safe and need people for our images.
It has to be said that Bristol is a vibrant city, very diverse and if you haven’t been then it really should be on your list of places to visit. I met my friend, French Street Photographer extraordinaire and all round nice guy Jeff Chane-Mouye in Bristol last year, take a look at his website and you’ll find out about his experience and also get an opportunity to see some quite exceptional Street Photography. My opening shot of this post and these two above were taken in Stokes Croft, a stones throw from the city centre. Speaking of which here’s a quick slideshow of some shots taken walking through a few parts of the centre to give you a feel:
I walked up to Colston Avenue. That’s where the skateboarders hang out. One day I’ll strike up a conservation with these lads, probably won’t be quoting Charles Dickens, I’ll need to be more ‘down with the kids’ than that. It’d be great to do some close up work with them and their boards:
Walk on a little further, past the Bristol Hippodrome Theatre and we find ourselves at an outdoor food area. There’s a couple of these in Bristol. Again, they attract people, which is why these two ladies had picked this spot to sell charity and earn commission. I sat down and watched for a while, they didn’t appear to get anyone to sign up whilst I was there:
I paused for a while to chat to a fellow Leica user from China, he’s here studying mathematics at the University of Bristol. The charity girl with the bandana also came over and told us how she used to photograph in medium format before deciding that there was no money in photography. I seldom go out on a trip when I don’t end up in conversation with a photographer. I decided to head back to where my motorbike was parked. I would be walking through my last location where I knew I’d find some Graffiti Art. Actually Bristol is full of it, we’ve discussed this before and know that Banksy started out in this city. I’d spotted a piece of art on the side of a building and wanted some kind of a shot with it included. See where the contradiction comes in? Anyway, I waited:
….and waited
…until eventually deciding that I was in the wrong spot, not getting remotely close to what I’d imagined and moved further down the street. You have to think these things through, I often don’t. Before I show more or less what I was looking for in this location I must apologise. Once again I’ve began a blog post with one premise and ended up totally contradicting myself. It’s true that if you’re making close up Street shots then they could be taken anywhere, for example our guy smoking his cigarette at the beginning of Act II. He could have been in Bath, New York, Toronto., Paris. Also true that you can just visit the same city from now until your own ‘final curtain’, the background practically irrelevant, just the ever changing faces of any real importance. I do like to get a bit of scenery involved though, one of the reasons for going wider from 35mm to the new 28mm.
I’m beginning to get used to this 28mm. I really like it and it hurts me to say this, but I’m wondering if I need the 35mm any more. That was the allrounder that I believed everyone should have glued to the camera, could 28mm be the new 35mm.
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are taken using a Leica M with Summicron 28mm Lens fitted.
If you're interested in receiving new Blog Posts via email please subscribe using the box below which is titled ‘The Latest Leica Biker Blogposts Delivered To Your Inbox’