My street photography is starting to change and this I feel is because of Fujifilm’s 23mm F2 lens, I’ve never been a fan of any focal length apart from 50mm or around the 75mm. I feel the 35mm focal length (35mm is the true focal length of the 23mm lens) is allowing me to use the light to create the best photos, it is also allowing me to get the whole scene into the photo, which in turn helps me tell a story. Don’t get me wrong I still love using my 56mm lens and that will never change, however, I now know how to best use both the 23 and 56 lenses. I will use the 23mm when the sun or even the artificial light is perfect and I’ll mostly use the 56mm at night or when there is very little light.
Having the 23mm lens on the camera is also allowing to work a scene easier than the 56mm would. So I find myself looking for the light and good framing and I will then spend an hour waiting in this one spot for the perfect photo (which never happens, well ok sometimes it does). This, in turn, has also helped me slow down and it’s also helping me get better framing in my photos, like the one below:
When I travel to Cambridge and London and there's no light, I find myself walking around looking for good spots which I come back to when the light is perfect. This way I’m not running around looking for somewhere and wasting good light. Now, don’t get me wrong, you don’t need good to light to work a scene, the photo below shows this:
Both I and Christian spent over an hour in this one spot just waiting for the right person to come into the frame and that's what working a scene is for me. Find somewhere frame up and wait, most of the time nothing happens, but when everything comes together, you know it was time well spent.
I thought it might be interesting for people to see what it takes to capture that one great photo, so below I’ve added a digital contact sheet if you will and you can see all the photos taken before capturing that one great photo.
