Street Brotography In The Mission (San Francisco)

Hello bros and broettes,

Below are some photos I shot in San Francisco last weekend. These were generally taken with a zoom lens at between 55mm and 200mm. The zoom isn’t nearly as sharp as the 35mm prime (everything looks blurry after you’ve used a prime), but the results have plenty of resolution for web display. These were all shot without flash. Nikon claims that the D5000 camera’s pop flash has a range long enough to use with this lens. That’s a joke.

Erik's assignment for these is similar to his assignment for the last set of brotos, with a twist: in some of these images, Erik must write poghems "about" or "from the perspective of" more than one subject. I will indicate when this is needed. The titles I provide here are just suggestions. There are even some non-human subjects thrown in for variety.

Click an image to view it larger.

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"Akita Evita Rat Dog"

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"Baby Driver (Apologies to Paul Simon)"

*Erik: Write about both the subjects.

*About This Image: I have, on several occasions, photographed subjects who are in cars. I do this on foot. I try not to do the opposite (i.e. I try not to take photographs while driving) because this is quite dangerous, though I've done it more than I would like to admit. Photographing people who are riding in cars is easy: I simply find a good location where I know traffic will be stopped and cars will be lined up. Usually, busy two-lane or four-lane roads work best; walking between cars on wider streets is unsafe. It is also best to choose intersections where the vehicle speed is low. A good intersection near where I live is El Camino and California Avenue. The intersection of El Camino and Page Mill Road/Oregon Expressway is a bit too busy for safe shooting. Once I have found an intersection, I simply wait for traffic to stop and wait for a line of cars to build up. I then walk between the cars and photograph people through their open windows (this works best on hot days, when people's windows are likely to be down...shooting through window glass should be avoided). People in cars are ideal subjects because they are not very able to move and quite unlikely to abandon their cars in order to chase me through the street. About a month ago, I was photographing a bro on California Avenue through his open window. He glared at me and asked "Can I help you?". I said "You already are, you're doing great, just stay right there". He did. I memorize the timings of lights so I can be out of a street when traffic starts to flow again. Of course, as soon as traffic is flowing in one direction, it will stop in the other, so I can resume shooting efficiently. The best intersections are those where the light timings are similar for all directions of travel (generally, intersections between two roads of approximately equal traffic volume).

This shot was a challenge because the lighting inside the car was weak. I could have cranked the ISO filmspeed equivalent, but I was already at ISO = 640, and going much beyond that will introduce undesirable optical noise into a subject's skin. If I knew this girl had freckles, I would have cranked the ISO to 720 or even 800 because I find I can get away with higher filmspeeds when photographing people who have freckles. Of course, I didn't notice she had freckles at the time, so this option didn't cross my mind. To shoot in low light, I had to use a low F-stop (a low ratio between aperture diameter and focal length), which meant that I would have a shallow focal plane. The plane in which facial features would be in focus was only about four inches deep. This meant my focus would have to be dead-on, but the light was too dark for me to trust the autofocus, which works poorly in low light. So, I set the camera to automatic shooting (about 3 frames per second) and started snapping shots. I hit the autofocus override and turned the focus ring slowly as I shot, sweeping the focal plane, in the hopes that at least one shot would have the subject in proper focus. This is that shot.

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"Young Woman With Curls"

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"Man In Orange Striped Hat"

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"East Indian Drummer"

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"Street Fashion: Flower Woman"

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"Girl Spraying Herself With Water Bottle"

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"Green Iguana With Man"

*Erik: Write about both the iguana and the man.

*About This Photograph: Yes, that is a real iguana. Or lizard. Or something.

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"Hasselblad Shooter"

*About This Image: The subject is carrying incredibly expensive equiptment. He has two Hasselblad cameras around his neck; Hasselblad is the undisputed top brand in photo equipment. Their DSLR's run from about $17,000 to $54,000 per each, and models up to 60 megapixels are available. This man had one medium-end and one high-end camera: $60,000 in cameras alone, I would say. Hassleblad lenses are also very expensive, and both his lenses were name-brand fast telephotos (you can tell they have low F-stops because of the tulip-shaped hoods). These run about $7000 to $22,000 per lens. Overall, this man was carrying $75,000 in camera equipment at minimum.

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"I Wonder If This Man Likes Soccer"

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"Jesus Christ!"

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"Man Adjusting Sound Equiptment"

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"Closeup: Pink Ipod (One Of The Perks Of Using A Telebroto Lens)"

*Erik: You need not write about this man twice, but you must speculate as to his Ipod contents.

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"Man Wearing White Hat And Beads"

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"Mexican Girl In Blue Dress"

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"Should Have Driven A Volvo"

*Erik: Write about both the driver and the woman to the left.

*About This Image: This car's radiator had blown out; a stream of steaming fluid is visible beneath the car. The driver drove the car past me to the side of the road; the fluid was green and iridescent, indicating it to be radiator fluid (a mixture of water and ethylene glycol). Though the day was hot, there shouldn't have been all that much strain on the radiator, given how slowly the driver was traveling. I've driven my 1998 Volvo V70 through the high desert (7000 ft.) at 80 MPH and in 110-degree heat with the AC on for two hours, and didn't loose a drop of radiator fluid. It's worthwhile to note that altitude puts added strain on the radiator, since water boils at a lower temperature at altitude, and since the air at altitude is thinner and less effective at removing heat from the radiator.

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"Photographer Examines A Shot"

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"Young Cinematographer"


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"Zebra Feeling The Music"

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That's all for now, folks. Peas out. V4L.

-A2