A second image from my recent walk around the exterior of the Shopping Mall. Click here to see the earlier Post. This image was taken primarily to capture the fractured reflections of the facade above the shops. If I had been carrying an SLR with a long lens then that is what I would have focused on, but all I had was the Lumix LX100, hence the wider view.
It was a grab shot without any real thought. Taking images in a busy street when you need to frame with some degree of care means you focus and frame and grab the shot. I don’t like the idea of standing there with raised camera waiting for the precise moment to shoot. People seeing a camera raised either stand to one side and wait for the image to be shot, or start to stare at the camera as if their privacy is being invaded.
So, what you come away with can be a bit hit and miss. On this occasion I would say that I was fortunate. On the left I have a woman, and on the right I have a man. Neither is aware of the camera, both look natural, and they book-end the image rather well. I’m happy with that!
Ah yes, your bookends work well here!
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Thanks Sue.
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That required quick actions in order to be an unobserved observer are both the thrill and the vexation of shooting in public or on the street. Sometimes there’s so much/many moving through the scene you can’t be sure what you have until you review the photos. Nice reflections and nicely captured under the circumstances…I like it! 🙂
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Thank you Earl. You’re absolutely right – these images are almost impossible to compose, you can’t see all the edges at once! I got two shots, and it wasn’t until I got home that I realized what I had captured. It could so easily have been a failure.
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Interesting shot , interesting post!
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Thanks Paula
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A friend of mine who does a lot of street photography once told me there is no such thing as a truly random capture, because we instinctively sense the “decisive moment.” In this case I would say he is right. Great shot, Andy!
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An interesting comment from your friend. I think in certain types of street photography that might be true, after all it was Henri Cartier-Bresson who coined the term ‘decisive moment’, and he was a master of street photographer. However when you have a stream of people passing by you need several pairs of eyes to know what is going on across the frame. I still think this was good fortune, in my case!
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I particularly like the implied contrast between two ways of life: the older represented by the shapes and building materials in the top reflections, and the newer by the crowded street scene. Of course, I’m not much for crowds generally, but the brick and stone seem so much warmer and inviting than the scene on the actual street. Of course, given the number of fur-trimmed heavy coats, there could be more than aesthetics involved with that perception!
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An astute observation, Linda. Towns are places of contrast. We bustle around them, heads down, in an impersonal world of sameness. In the shadows. And above us, unseen, the sun is shining and the windows are lit – and 99% of the shoppers are oblivious of it.
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