Street Photography - Initial Attempt

Burton Town Centre; Overcast Saturday.
Telephoto lens; hand-held; fixed auto-focus.

The cluster of images below did not work! Too much background and no real point of interest. Two main problem were identified; namely:

• delay in capturing single images: this was due to the use of auto-focus and meant that the image was lost by the time the focus was crisp.

• distance away from the individuals: this meant that there was too much background and loss of clarity when the images were cropped.

Examples of images taken

Attempts were made to photograph a series of images thereby increasing the scope of capturing the "moment". A sequence below captures two ladies queing for coffee and cake. The third image (bottom left of the group) was then chosen as both individuals were looking at the cakes. The image again had too much background which meant that it started to pixellate when cropped. The moment was captured but it had meant greatly reducing the quality of the image.

Sequence of images as taken.

Original image (Left) & final cropped version (Right)

Final image

Compare the above image with a photograph below taken by Terence Donovan for the Pirelli Calendar. The main difference is that Donovan's image is staged using a model and additional lighting. Donovan's image has been taken close in and framed by the car-wash machinery. The focus is on the model sitting in the drivers seat and your eye is drawn across the image by the wheel, reflection on the windscreen and the fact that the mini car is emerging from the machinery. The quality of the image is extremly high in comparison with my image of the ladies choosing the cake.

Terence Donovan: Pirelli Calendar

My challenge is to get closer to my subject and increase the quality of the photographs. This will negate the need to crop images to gain focus on the subject matter.