Street Photo Diary Issue 26
It’s been another month, and so it’s time for another issue of my Street Photo Diary series. Every time I do one of these I always end up having difficulty coming up with an intro for the piece. Having just watch “The Big Bang Theory” and Sheldon’s “Fun With Flags, behind the flag, a retrospective” I’m tempted to do a humorous take on that, but instead, something else occurred to me.
I’ve written in the past about somewhat reluctantly coming to embrace street photography. It wasn’t something that I set out to do, but rather something I picked up organically. Lately I’ve noticed that it’s become something like a form of therapy, especially when I’m experiencing creative block. The last few weeks, I’ve been suffering from this to a large degree. That and imposter syndrome. Shooting street photography helps calm my mind and focus on the moment. Even if I’m not always happy with the results.
Sometimes though, it too can be the source of the creative block, especially when you’re working with a relatively small city like Dublin. I find that I have a tendency to get blinkered into doing the same thing over and over, or walking the same routes. When I realise that I’m doing this I try and shake things up and change it around a little. I also try and choose different subjects. I wanted to do some more arty type shots this last little while so I’ve been trying that too. I was trying to shoot more film, but it seems that there’s something wrong with my Yashica. The shutter keeps getting stuck open on it.
For this months section, as always there’s been a mix of gear used. I shot mostly with my D700, my Fuji X-Pro2 and my Sony A6000. Of all of these, I actually prefer the A6000 for street shooting. I like it because of the flip up screen, and the lightening fast and accurate autofocus, which locks onto people’s faces really well. For processing, this was all done in Lightroom. The Fuji files were pre-processed with Iridient X-Transformer. I’ve been having real issues with Lightroom lately when using Sony ARW files, but I still use it because I like having access to my presets that I’ve spent time building up. I’ve been trying to port these to Capture One, but it’s not that easy. Anyway, for this set I’ve mostly used QuickLUX 2 as the main set. This is probably one of my favourite sets that I’ve created, even though it was a while ago now. I also used some Film Candy 2, T-Pan and Vivid Extreme in here too.
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All of the work I do here, and the information on this blog is done entirely free of charge and takes quite a bit of work. I want to spend more and more time on this blog, and offer more and more of this kind of information, tips and so on. All of this is funded exclusively through my Digital Download store, so If you like what I'm doing here and want to show support, then you can do so by buying something from my Digital Download Store where I have Lightroom Presets, and e-books available for download.
If you're a Fuji X-Trans shooter and Lightroom user, check out my guide to post processing X-Trans files in Lightroom. I also have a guides for processing X-Trans files in Capture One and Iridient Developer.
For Sony Alpha shooters I have a new guide with tips on how to get the best from processing your A6000 Images in Lightroom.
