Street Photoragphy
State College in Black and White, June 18, 2021
The time I can spend on my State College in Black and White photo project has, for the most part, been limited to when I’m already downtown and have just a bit of time to kill. So, if anything, these are basically photo records of “Days When Rob Went and Got a Haircut.” As has been the case with (I think) all of the photos in this project thus far, I took these on my Ricoh GR II, a small and discreet camera ideal for street photography (that is, if you can nowadays use a camera that’s not a phone and still consider that discreet).
Next time I’m shooting downtown, I’ll see what I can do with just my iPhone. I very much enjoy using a dedicated camera, but I know from past experience that there are shots I can get with my phone that I wouldn’t be able to get with a larger, standalone camera.
iPhone 7 series
Every now and then, Timehop will show me a photo I took on my phone five or six years ago. Sometimes I'll be able to remember what in the scene made me take it. I imagine my past self swiping through Instagram filters, finding one that had that "something" and feeling pretty happy with the end result. But looking down at the photo now on a retina display phone, the limitations of the old hardware are evident. There's muddled looking contrast and unsightly digital grain, only slightly disguised by the kitschy filter.
I probably would have a hard time telling the difference between a photo taken on an iPhone 6S and a photo taken on an iPhone 7 (not counting the 7+'s fancy Portrait setting). But these cameras do get incrementally better every year, and per my Timehop example, those improvements are even more evident when skipping generations. So for me, the 5s to the 7 is a big jump.
It would be difficult for me to pinpoint just how much better the 7 is than the 5s short of doing shot by shot comparisons, which would likely drive me bananas. So instead I figured I would instead actively shoot and post on the 7 over the course of a week and see how I felt at the end of it.
For this post, I tried to focus on subjects that would typically catch my attention on the street, as well as a few that might be good for showcasing the new camera (such as the flowers and produce below). As an experiment, I edited in the Photos app rather than Instagram. I'm not in love with the Photos app's editing interface. I like the attempt at simplicity with the master Light and Color sliders, but I found myself almost always digging into the subsliders anyway, which makes for a lot of expanding and collapsing of menus. Things would also often get cumbersome after I cropped an image: I would crop it, and then the image would automatically expand under the top and bottom control bars to the edges of the display. So I'd have to tap the image again so that the bars would disappear and I could see the whole thing. Still, every now and then it's good to shake loose of old habits, so I like to think it pushed me to be a little more purposeful in my edits instead of following my rote Instagram editing routines.
Overall, I'm very happy with how these came out. As has always been the case with phones in recent years, in good conditions, the camera on your phone will do a great job. In more challenging conditions, like nighttime on the street or high contrast environments, things get trickier. But even then I still think they came out well. Rarely did I take a shot that I felt was unusable because of the quality of the image (i.e. it's not you, phone; it's me).
Two other neat things, apparently iOS 10 now allows you to shoot in RAW on third party apps. The f/1.8 aperture is also a nice improvement. I could imagine using a third party app to shoot in aperture priority and attempt to squeeze some nicely bokehed shots out of it. But digging into these features does run counter to the sense of simplicity that I've enjoyed while shooting on my phone this week. I like that I can point my phone at something, take the photo, and feel alright about it, and move on. The fact that it's a phone lowers my expectations on what I ought to be trying to control.
I don't think the iPhone 7 quite beats my GR II, but sooner or later I imagine an iPhone will (just as how the iPhone 7 is likely now at parity, if not better than, my old S90). And of course, the biggest advantage that it has over my GR II or my DSLR is that it is always in my pocket. As photographer Chase Jarvis has said, "the best camera is the one you have with you".
But also, it doesn't hurt when that camera also happens to be really good.
Yellow
Taxi on Lexington Avenue
On Lexington Avenue, I'll often pull out my phone and try to grab panning shots of cars going by. So as the car comes up, I'll hit the shutter and attempt to move the phone in the same direction as the car while it passes. Hence the blurry background and less blurry car.
Vote Your Conscience
Saw this while I was walking through Noho. Did a quick Google search and found this info on it.
Cemetery
Main Concourse, Grand Central Terminal
This same shot, from the balcony of the Apple Store, is probably taken thousands upon thousands of times per day.
Strawberries
Bus Stop
43rd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue
This needs a bit more contrast, but I wasn't able to get it quite right.
Sunset
Barber Shop
I really like how the contrast between the cool florescent lights inside and the red neon on the edge of the window. The operator error here, though, is that I think this ought to be a straight shot of the window, with the neon lights lining up with the edges of the photo. I grabbed this as I was walking by, though, and I thought backing up to take that straight shot might be a bit too obvious or awkward with the people right inside.
Under Construction
Again, needs more contrast. This might be due to a filter effect that I applied.
Grapes
This was shot using the Panorama setting. I haven't used Panorama much before, mostly because my old phone was always nearly out of storage.
Always On
For shots of people on the street, I've found that using the volume button as the shutter works best. It's a little less obvious than pressing my thumb to the screen. Also, since the volume button is a physical button, I can keep my thumb on it while looking ahead. The iPhone 7 has image stabilization that supposed to help with blur at low shudder speeds. When shooting like this, though, I'll inevitably get one good shot out of every 10 or more, since usually both myself and my subjects are in motion.
1
This seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. On the one hand, you don't want to have piss or shit on your doorstep. On the other, having signs and depictions of pissing and shitting on the front of your house probably isn't a great feeling either.
At The Strand
No Trespassing Beyond This Point
Trespass to here; no farther.
Looking
Union Square Park
High Contrast Black and White
Hello from London! My wife and I are presently enjoying our honeymoon, and in anticipation of that, earlier this month I put together the below post in advance (more fun with the Ricoh GR II, this time focusing on street photography using its high contrast black and white setting).
We're still traveling for a few more days, and I've posted a handful of photos from the trip so far on the Facebook page. I'll probably put together a post in a few weeks with other select shots (most likely one with street photography, and another on signs and signage that caught my attention).
Hope you enjoy the below!
Cheers,
Rob
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Since I post-process just about everything I shoot, I've rarely looked closely at camera reviews' discussions of in-camera JPG processing. But people seem to really like how Ricoh cameras process their black and white JPGs, so I thought I might spend a few days shooting only in the High Contrast Black and White JPG setting, with minimal post-processing. It was tough to keep minimal "minimal"- ultimately I did a lot of cropping and some adjustments to exposure and vignettes. But in the end, the time it took to edit these did turn out to be much shorter because the in-camera JPG processing actually did a pretty good job in the first place.
I don't know if I'll use this approach too often, as giving up the control of working with the full RAW file does feel wrong somehow (If I really like this look, theoretically, I ought to be able to create it in editing anyway). However, I do like the idea of using a filter like this to push me in a different direction than I would have gone if I were starting from scratch, so it will no doubt be a useful tool to shake things up once in a while in the future.
Scooter Man
Pedicab
Work Ahead
Crossing Madison Avenue
Caught
On the Job
Smoking
Mannequin