Well, at the last minute I switched bags from the TurnStyle 5 to the Retrospective 5. It just is a little easier to swap cameras from the Retrospective 5. I don’t need any Enter & Exit Bag Procedure Intrusions. On the street I adjusted the dividers a little and now everything just works great. So, Andre’ has the 23mm on and Garry has the 50mm on and the extra pocket holds the EF-X20 Flash & the 18mm. I’ll never use all this stuff out on the street but….if I don’t use both cameras, one will go and I know it. So, I need to learn again to depend on using 2 cameras. Besides, what better way to change lenses eh? It was very convenient to swap cameras when I felt like changing Field of Views. It’s not hard to take, that I’ll say.
So I’m in Independence Historical Park and there’s already a growing swell of tourist. I couldn’t be happier. Actually I will be happier when the weather is tourist time. 75f +, sunny. That’s as good as it gets around here. This guy is looking at me like I’m from Mars. He’s at first looking at my hat. I’m wearing the OD Green VietNam Veteran Hat. I raised the camera as I drew closer and then he walked over to his friend. They had a map because they didn’t know where they were. Then the guy looks dead at me and ….CLIICK!
He says to me, “Thank You For Your Service”. Now I won’t repeat this and you darn sure didn’t get it from me but, every time someone says that to me, I get a tear in my heart. Hey, hey…I’m a man guy and we doin’ let tears come from the eyes….well, except if my cat Barsik licks my face when I’m sleeping.
At this time I’m starting my Observing mode. I’m not seeking the photos that I feel define me but rather the photos that define me that I just make naturally.
I just like to feel present in the Here and Now and these photos do that. That’s all I want from them. They have a chance to be seen for a spell and then I’ll click into high gear and put all the preconceptions that others and myself place upon my work and get back in the rut of working hard. Right now…it’s about innocence of the moment. Innocence of the subject and innocence of me and my pure enjoyment of being a shooter.
The Fuji XP1 OVF
There is much discussion about the OVF and much of it is warranted but then again….? I do not crop my photos. It’s not that I’m a purest or some nutcase that feels that cropping will bring the devil to the photos. Nah, I’m not cropping because I choose not to and besides…..I need to learn to see what Andre’ & Garry see. I know one thing. They will always get the last word.
I find the OVF to be as good as any Leica M I’ve used and thats many. I have both cameras set to do the OVF only. Of course in an emergency like if say, Penelope Cruz asked me to do a photo of her, well…I’d use the EVF just to be safe. Of course I’d stumble a little just to get the session to last longer but you get the idea. Other than that, the OVF is as good as it needs to be, for me. It’s the frame lines and parallax that are the achilles heel of any OVF camera. Ya know, who would want things to be that easy that all ya had to do was point and shoot?
See how terrible the AF compensation works on the XP1. Yeah, trash this camera and the stupid finder because the parallax doesn’t work the way I think it should. Get a LIFE! Go learn how to use the camera and stop complaining about it and do something about it.
The Camera is deadly accurate. I think I maybe have 2 frames that i missed the focus on. No, not 2 today, 2 from maybe 8 months. So focus check procedures passed with both cameras. It’s gonna be a great season here in Philly. I’m primed and ready. One of the things I need to be attentive of is the decision of changing lenses. Of course that means changing from Andre’ to Garry. This will no doubt be a very interesting experience this season and the lesson learned will stay with me until my time on the planet is finished.
There’s an innocence on the street now. It’s a thing that happens when tourist come in droves. I mean the folks that live here are weather worn and maybe bored with it all. But the Tourist, they bring new life to the city. I always felt that the City Government brought all the tourist here so that I could make photos of them and about them. Then I found out years ago that only some come to get photos made by me. It’s cool because I adore the tourist because I am a tourist. Besides, I’m not that good that I could catch them all and do a portrait of them. I’d love to get the commission for that project tho’.
Listen, many shooters hate looking like a tourist because they think it’s almost degrading. Hogwash…Rubbish I tell ya! We are all tourist in life, no one gets a permanent visa. So that’s like a valuable lesson from the streets. When you travel, do you feel kinda paranoid that someone will try to rob you, steal your camera, kids etc? Of course, it’s a natural state of awareness. So as a shooter, we have to act like a tourist so that tourist don’t feel that we are different from them. I act like a tourist for decades and I can get as close as I want to anyone without sneaking because I am totally into people that are into exactly what I’m into.
Tourist come to Philly to see the sites, appreciate the History of The United States and see all the different people from all over the world and make pictures of everything and everyone. ….. yep, you got it. I just described myself also…..!
I made this photo and then this man looked up at me and asked where I was from. I told him from Northeast Philly. He said, get the f…out, I thought you were a freakin’ tourist.
I haven’t gotten a compliment like that in a while. I walked away smiling but after I slipped him a few bucks. He made my day.
This is at the Municipal Services Building. That’s where people go to get licenses for all kinds of things like sleeping on statues and being totally drunk. It’s cool, it’s Philly and it’s life.
This guy is dressed pretty good and ya can see he’s not homeless, just drunk and tired. I knew he was drunk because there was a Vodka bottle behind his back. I used to party like that but now I just make photos of people that party like that.
All in all, Andre’, Garry and I had a productive day. They were both happy to get out and I was to.
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Two camera setup, yeah! That’s what I wanted to try and recently has started to experiment with. For couple of months I’ve got Ricoh GR in my pocket which is 18mm (aka 28) and recently I got discounted X-E1 with 35mm (aka 50). For me they complement each other nicely. But still it’s a fresh setup for me so just tying it out, will be something nice to play with during spring. And it’s so far so good, just the damn fuji 35mm lens is… weird, talkative, and why is it making all those weird sounds? Dtzzzt…. dtzzzztz….. Fukc, shut up! 🙂 Well, camera itself also feels like a living organism instead of a dead brick which captures light.
That is a great combo. It gives you a 2x enlargement with ease. I loved the GR but I had issues with it I won’t go into. Today I will test the sound of the Fuji lenses and especially the 35mm. Outside, I don’t hear anything…inside..results on the way……
I’m kinda torn on photographing homeless. I can only do it if it’s a genuine moment that passed. As such I think I’ve only ever taken three subjects that have made it to the hard drive without being deleted. One was an old homeless couple I’d pass on my walks visiting friends in Oregon, I’d chat with them each time I passed, give them a couple of bucks for coffee on my way to some lonesome abandoned pioneer ranch. The final time I passed I asked for their portraits and got something special to me. The second time was in Bath, when I saw a homeless man sleeping in a tangle of bushes and trees that almost wrapped around him, the setup was almost like a pre-raphaelite Arthurian myth painting. And then there was a girl sat under a bridge in Berlin, with the shafts of light bracketing her in such a way that I found real interesting.
Of the three here (pretending for arguement that the second is homeless, though from the good shoes you can tell he’s not) the top two qualify as real good shots. I like the visual dynamism of the sleeping guy threading the needle of the statues legs, the contrast in their activity. The fact that they’ve both got amazing boots. And naturally the first has that bitter contrast of the party fashion girls and local reality crashing at their feet.
The third, I like the swirl (curlicue?) stencil that rolls on down to him, leading the eye. But it’s not really enough, I don’t know.
Anyway, the important thing is that from what I’ve seen from you on this great blog is that you’re treating them like people and not photographic prey. You interact with them, they are on your radar but not treated as a gimmick. I sometimes worry about the balance of photographing the homeless, they are ever present and should not be airbrushed out, but on the other hand they can be dangerously like fish in a barrell and I feel they images of them have to have some quality other than, “Hey, they’re crusty homeless dudes!”
Oh! I just got a retrospective 5 as well, second hand. I like it.
And finally I’ve got to start trusting the OVF more. The X-Pro1 IS accurate, but I freak out not being able to tell. I should relax and be trustful, just use the EVF for creative exposure or pre-visualising and let the OVF do the heavy lifting, as it is lovely to look through.
Man, that was a long comment. Anyway, some good stuff, as usual!
Peter, thanks again. I remember many years ago, like 3 decades or so….I was in a van with 7 people heading to a shoot for the Department of Recreation. We passed a corner and standing there in her own world was a young woman just lost inside and out. Some of the riders with me started making jokes like….Ain’t she a beaut…..I’ll bet she has a boyfriend that takes good care of her, ….ain’t she sexi….and everyone was laughing, and joking having a good time at her expense without a second thought that it was at their expense.
After things calmed down and they got back to smoking their cigs and sipping coffee, I said…ya know…I’ll bet somewhere on the planet is a heartbroken father looking blank at a wall and thinking, what’s happened to my little girl? Where is my daughter. how is she? Her mother sits next to her dad and wonders, what did we do wrong? Of course the response was that I was a bummer, a drag and everyone just ignored me the rest of the day. The realization to me was that the disease of humanity will never even come close to a cure.
The XP1 is absolutely an amazing camera that frees me up. I keep it set to the finder because like you I find it’s lovely to look thru. The other things is that it forces me to think more and not take for granted what the camera is seeing. This happens all the while but not as an intrusion but a guide to pay attention.
Thanks again…Peter
“The XP1 is absolutely an amazing camera that frees me up. I keep it set to the finder because like you I find it’s lovely to look thru. The other things is that it forces me to think more and not take for granted what the camera is seeing. This happens all the while but not as an intrusion but a guide to pay attention.”
I’ve had mine for a little over a year. I have been fortunate in having access to good cameras and lenses. But this is the first one that I find utterly fluid in use. It just works, and yes, it’s scary accurate. As for the OVF, well I think it’s a gem. I’ve loved it from day one. A little patience and practice and it is a fine tool. I have a suspicion that some of the negative comments are from people who just don’t want to take the time to practice, to develop craft.
I found the comments both you and Peter made about the homeless very interesting. One thing I’ve discovered (isn’t age wonderful?) is that there are a lot of people who have a house but are homeless. Anyway, the people we refer to as homeless have their stories, their backgrounds, hopes and fears. As you point out, often there is someone thinking of them too. About the only thing that makes me truly sad, and verges on feeling helpless, is the brutality we humans throw at each other.
Anyway, as always, thanks for the photographs and the thoughts.
Stephen, Thank You Sir for stopping by. I agree completely about the learning curve on the OVF. I guess I didn’t experience anything negative from it due to the decades of Leica M’s. There’s a Digital forum where it gets bashed all the time and of course, it’s due to not taking the time to learn it.
Today in the current economy here in the USA, it’s sometimes families that get to be homeless. I met a young woman with a family on the street and she told me she thought that in America everyone had rights and the right to certain standards of living. She felt abused by her country and the people walking by her every day…….
It’s similar here (Canada). We do have the benefit of universal health care and education, and both are very good. Still, there are more and more people on minimum wage, and our society is built around opportunities to grow rather than simple survival. There are more and more people for whom each day is a struggle that appears to have no end. We’re not even looking after our Afghan vets properly.
Hey Don, I have been using the Retro 5 for over a year. It’s my go bag. I’m about to try out a BBE bag just to switch it up and have something with a bit deeper pockets.
I have more bags then socks…..
Love the opener pic.
Keith, I have more bags than my wife. The Retro turns me on but sometimes I think it’s too big. I guess I’m in a Love The Retro thing for a spell because it works so well. For one, it allows easy in/out of each camera with no drag or hangups. That allows me to go back to wrist straps because I don’t need the neck strap anymore.
Thanks for the prop on the pic….shhhhh whispering….watz a BBE bag?
Link –
http://www.indianhillimageworks.com/catalog/camera-bags/the-bare-bones-bag-evolution-bbb-e
A bit pricey, but I have a little extra cash, and wanted to treat myself to something.
Thanks Keith. I really need to be tempted by another bag. Actually the Retro 5 is a very fine bag and Andre’ & Garry like sleeping in there.
I’d like to see how you set up the new bag, keep us posted….
I have a BBE. I’ve been using it for about a year. Generally I have it carrying my XP1 and 3 lenses, or XP1 and X100s plus an extra lens. I like it. It does not offer as much protection as the Retrospective series, but generally I prefer it over the latter. The primary reason is that it is softer, and more form-fitting. It conforms to the wearer’s body, and is unobtrusive. a downside is that it doesn’t have the velcro silencers – important to some.
My favourite bag is the Hadley Pro.
There are just so many bags…
🙂
Whenever I see a mature, particularly down and out homeless person I think to myself that at one point they were someone’s precious child and there is a story about how they got from that point to where they are now.
Dave, it doesn’t take much to end up living on the streets. It could take a lifetime to get off of them tho’. It’s a disgrace in this country that it could even happen that people live without a home.
Agreed.