Finding Voice

The screenwriter had written something to the effect that "the Frat Boy's boombox pops on and a window shatters into a shower of glass."

Rob Reiner critiquing the script suggested that instead of the glass shattering that the glass just rattle in its frame.
A different way of saying the same thing - that the boombox was turned up WAY loud. These two images at a certain level are saying the SAME thing. One is shattering glass, the other rattling. Find your voice.

WallWalker

The Wall Walker shot is to Street Photography... what Fruit Still Life is to painting.

"Pear and a half" by Conor O'Brien

Stripped to a few basics: backdrop, character, pose, lighting, the Wall Walker shot is among the standards of Street Photography. The challenge then for both the painter...

"Tilt Life" by bONGO

and the Street Photographer...is to change it, mix it up, if only in an incremental fashion...

Precepts of Perception

Cross dominance, where your favored eye is opposite that of favored hand occurs in about three percent of the population. It's easy to test: with both eyes open, raise your hand and point to an object at least 20 feet away, then alternately close your left eye and then your right. The one that stays focused on the target is your dominant eye.
I have always been left eye dominant - until recently. Somehow my right eye has taken over. It's very disconcerting to me. I've thought, maybe I'm becoming more analytical in my approach to visual arts, more "left brained" in my thinking, and thus the shift in eye dominance. There is some evidence according to an article in the Oxford Journals that this might indeed be what has happened.

I also see stereograms "inside out" and have the dubious honor of being the only person in recorded history to have eye-zoomed.

My point in all of this is that HOW we see is at least as important as what camera gear we use - that there are individual, subtle differences in our perceptual "hardware" that effects how our brain views the world and consequently the photographs we take.

Street Snake

How slow can you go?

Monopods are often impractical for street work. They take too long to set up and are too conspicuous.

Tripods are the same only times three.

Leaning against something works, but where you want to be and where there's something to lean on are often two different places...

Image Stabilization (IS) is a great, but up-down and in-out movements are NOT corrected. IS only works for rotational motion in one plane (or two planes if you have a Pentax K10D).

Fortunately there is the StreetSnake by bONGO.The StreetSnake comes complete with 1/4" 20 eyebolt and 10" bungee cord. Simply screw the eyebolt into the tripod socket of your camera then attach one end of the bungee to the eyebolt and the other end to your belt buckle. The downward force exerted by the bungee creates "dynamic tension" that acts to stabilize the camera.

The was shot - as pictured - with a 25mm (35mm equiv) lens and ONE SECOND exposure using the StreetSnake ONE SECOND exposure, 105mm(35mm equiv.) lens and StreetSnake...

StreetSnake - available at better hardware stores everywhere

- tell 'em bONGO sent you.