Experimenting with a 50mm focal length for street photography...

I recently purchased a new Fujifilm XF35mm F2 R WR lens to add to my kit. On an APS-C camera this lens is approximately a 50mm focal length full frame equivalent, and provides a tighter perspective when compared to my 28mm and 35mm options.

With prime lenses like these you really have to use your feet to get the perspectives that you’re looking for.

Here are my favourite pictures from the very first outing with the new lens.

I absolutely love the juxtaposition here as it looks as though the person in the foreground was actually on the street in 1969, and in the picture on the wall.

I love creating layers and depth by incorporating multiple people in a picture. What I like most about this picture is the guy on the tram platform staring into the sky, whilst the guy in the foreground (and others) are simply looking ahead of where they’re walking.

To me this implies that there is something unknown in all four directions of the picture.

A young boy playing soccer on a very busy Sydney CBD street, now that is unique and something that you might typically only see in South American countries.

Despite the chaotic scene, most of the people here have enough space around them, allowing the picture to avoid being too messy and distracting. With a 50mm lens you have to take many steps backward before creating this shot.

“With prime lenses like these you really have to use your feet to get the perspectives that you’re looking for.”

— Roger Brooks

An eye on Sly!

Pictures like these are much more engaging when taken with a tighter focal length, my wider lenses would not have been able to compress the scene and bring the artwork and person closer together.

Mind you, they weren’t too far apart to begin with, but still, the tighter focal length is more practical here, unless there are interesting characters to the left and right.

Even then, the tighter focal length allows the picture to be more intriguing by including the large face on the artwork and just one person.

Check out the father staring at me as I came down the escalator, obviously uneasy about me taking pictures! I bet that he is one of a zillion people who happily take pictures with their phones in public all the time, post the pictures and tag whoever is with them, yet frown when someone does it with a proper camera?!

And, and, and… if and when WE publish the pictures, no-one knows the identity of the people in the picture. Soooo, Mr and Mrs Public, what the hell are you whining about?!

RANT over!

The compression of a 50mm focal length allows perspectives such as these. This picture was taken from the southern/city side of Circular Quay train station, against the tram platform, and looking through the opening toward the ship terminal and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

These people were approximately 150 metres from the ship.

In this picture I allowed the 50mm focal length to compress the depth of the scene. I also purposely allowed the two people in the foreground to be inside the minimum zone focus range, therefore they were out of focus, allowing the eye to bounce from them and into the rest of the picture.

Here are a few images of the new lens on my Fujifilm X-Pro3 camera.

I gotta be honest, whilst I was out there trying techniques that I believe I needed to use in order to maximise the benefits of a 50mm focal length, I wasn’t inspired, nor confident that I was making interesting enough pictures.

When looking through the pictures after uploading them I still didn’t feel good about them.

I decided to take a break from them and returned to them a day or so later, and that gave me a new perspective and focus on the pictures, and only then could I see that in some ways I did achieve the desired results.

Even if I did not feel good about any of them, it was my very first time at using this focal length. Making changes such as this often require time and patience.

I am keen to continue to pursue compositions with this focal length, but not with every shoot.

I firmly believe that the 28mm and 35mm focal lengths are my favourites for street stuff, but now I have a challenging and very interesting option to throw into the mix every now and then.

If you’ve never shot with a 50, take a leap of faith and grab one, and be patient if at first it doesn’t feel right.

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts and the images, I appreciate you taking the time to check it out.

Roger Brooks.

Dealing with lack of motivation with your photography | Fujifilm X100VI

It has been a short while since I have felt passion and motivation in my street photography.

It’s not for a lack of effort. I have been out there, well, maybe only three or four times to be honest, and each time I have felt something missing whilst I’ve been out there… a feeling which was confirmed when I saw the images after uploading them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily believe that not really liking any of the day’s images means that the day was not a success. I am far too familiar with the realisation that being out there does not guarantee what we perceive as good results.

My recent issues extend well beyond whether the images were good enough or not… or do they?

If I really liked many images from those shoots then would I feel the same way about my photography?

Are there other causes affecting my outlook on my craft?

Well, I have a very busy job, there’s the day-to-day life matters outside of work, and oh, I’m currently in the worst physical condition of my life!

Now, I know that being fit and healthy can positively affect your outlook and possibly enhance your experience out there on the street, however its not a pre-requisite.

Good pictures can be made by physically unhealthy people… haha.

Look, I don’t really know what the ultimate cause, or causes are, but I do know that many obstacles in life are more often than not just temporary.

And, should photo shoots yielding unsatisfactory results be considered as life obstacles?

I think not, surely.

So where to from here?

At some point there will be a positive day which will change my mindset about my work, right?

In order for that to happen, there has to be some form of plan, a method, a challenge perhaps?

It is times like these where the focus has to be a little sharper, with a little more intent… spraying and praying won’t get it done!

Ok, so it was time to get this sorted, but how?

Well, to be honest there was no grand plan, I kept it relatively simple.

My plan was to follow the light (hooray, no insight there, genius!), focus on getting as many layered images as possible and most importantly, just be happy being out there with no super expectations.

So, I saw a sunny weather pattern appear in the forecast and decided to head onto the streets late one afternoon to set this thing in the right direction.

Now, I didn’t have a lot of time, therefore I decided to restrict my walk to within four or five blocks of the Sydney CBD, and pretty much central.

I began with a few warm-ups.

After hanging around the Town Hall precinct for a little while I headed north along George Street to see what the light was doing at a few busy intersections.

As some of you know I love the pictures of old time Sydney adorning the boards guarding people from entering the many construction sites in Sydney at the moment, and I enjoy shooting people as they move across these pictures. I really like these three examples, especially the depth created by multiple people in the last one.

Sunny days like these enable pockets of light to appear in certain spots, as they appear in-between buildings, in turn providing plenty of scope to isolate people to a large degree.

From time to time you’ll find ways to create something a little cheeky and humorous, such as this fella and his haircut as he passed by the barber shop sign.

And this one, where I captured the guy as the liquor bottles on the tram lined up with the movement of his arms, as if he was skulling the drinks!

I often enjoy capturing scenes like these, where it appears as though they’re at an intersection and people are giving way to others.

Couldn’t resist this group of office workers as the guy on the bike was racing by… I love the depth in this picture.

Here’s some more random pictures that I made as I took one last look around the Town Hall precinct before I was done.

The beautiful rumble of this Harley-Davidson Street Bob!

So, my message is to focus on what is important in your life. If something is important enough to you, and there appears to be obstacles, then take a step back, breathe and you’ll discover a way around the obstacles.

Thank you for reading the blog. I hope that you enjoyed it.