Portraits and shooting people!

Even though Street Photography is my main interest and focus, I do enjoy doing portraits and other such shoots as well. I have shot a couple of weddings, did my friends engagement photos, did my sister-in-law's "Trash the Dress" shoot after their wedding, and for the last couple of years I have volunteered to photograph the Santa pictures at the department store my wife works at. Each of these experiences have made me grow as a photographer and taught me a lot.

This is a shot from my Wife's Brother's wedding a couple of years ago. It was a overcast day, in fact it stopped raining just long enough for the service which was outdoors. As such there were no harsh shadows to work around.

This is a shot from the "Trash the Dress" I did with my Sister-in-Law. It was a great day, it was the first time I ever worked with a non-human model, LOL. It was a bright beautiful day and it was the first time that I had to rely on a reflector to fill in shadows. It was another great learning experience.

This was an engagement shoot that I did for friends, I also shot their wedding. The engagement shoot was a very fun experience. They chose an abandoned railway line behind their house as the location of the shoot and we got some great shots. It was a beautiful fall day.

I would love to do some more portraits and such. A good photographer should be well rounded and be able to do a lot of different styles of photography.

Street Art!

A big part of being a Street/Urban Photographer is that you see some really fantastic street art (both commisioned and graffitti). I have seen some amazing murals and street art done in a lot of different locations. For example, there is a town in the area where I grew up called Midland. This town was looking for another idea to attrack tourists, so they commissioned an artist to do a series of murals around town highlighting some of the town's history. And they have become a huge tourism draw. I have also found some great murals and art in places like the Kensington Market area of Toronto.

Some street art looks great in B&W photos, but some are so colourful that they cry out to shot in colour. The following are some of my favourite Street Art photos that I have taken and they were all taken in the Kensington Market area of Toronto.

Camera of choice!

Every photographer out there has their favourite brands of camera. My Dad for instance was always a Canon guy when it came to his SLR's, (I say was because he gave me his Canon camera to me to add to my collection). On the other hand my Brother is a Nikon shooter.

Myself, I have been a Fujifilm guy for years. My first "good" camera was the FujiFilm S2950 camera (which my Son now uses). I then upgraded to the FujiFilm HS25EXR bridge camera which is still my camera. I love the HS25, it is a fixed lens camera but it has an amazing zoom range (30X range 24-720mm without digital assist). It also shoots amazing macro pictures. I have taken some great shots over the last couple of years, including a great shot of a Bald Eagle when we were vacationing in Prince Edward Island. My son and brother in law were both using the S2950 cameras and I was able to zoom in so much closer before ended up scaring the Eagle away. The camera is fantastic for landscape and wildlife photography.

Unfortunately for my main photography interest of Street/Urban photography the camera isn't the greatest for a couple of reasons. The main reason that isn't working for me in that aspect is the size and weight. It isn't the biggest camera, nor is as heavy as most DSLR's but for Street Photography it still feels too big and heavy.

 If I am doing some Street shooting, say in Toronto, and want to go into a restaurant or store, having that big of a camera hanging on my sling (I use a sling style strap that screws into the tripod mount on the bottom of the camera) is a bit of a pain, If I am in a store, especially some of the cluttered stores in places like Kensington Market in Toronto I am always worried that my camera is going hit and breake something. Or that the lens will get damaged by coming into contact with something.

The other reason that I looking for a new camera is that when I am shooting with the HS 25EXR it is a little to obvious and intimating for people that I am trying to shoot. It looks too much big DSLR and people notice me when I am carrying it long before I raise it to my eye.

So I am shopping around for a new camera. Now even though a lot of the brands have some great small but advanced cameras out there, I want to stick with Fujifilm. So there are a few cameras I am looking at getting. I am really torn between the X30 and the X100T. I want a fixed lens, I don't have money that I can afford to spend on a lot of lenses, and for street photography I don't really need a lot of lenses anyway, so those two cameras would work great. The X30 has a small zoom range on it, while the X100T has a 35mm prime lens on it. I like the idea of the challenge of the fixed lens. But the X30 is almost half the price of the X100T which is around $1300 while the X30 is around $600. So I will probably go with the X30, but the X100T is such a pretty looking camera and is so tempting. Time, and money will decide which camera I end up buying. I will post an update when I finally buy one.