Hunkering Down

There are latitudes, yet please remember - "This Forum was created to allow general discussion of Photography Topics that are not better suited to any other Forum.

Thank you.

I appreciate the support for my post. I was, of course, deliberately conflating "street photography" with photography of streets. Nonetheless a 13+ stop neutral filter opens up opportunities to photograph normally crowded areas. The Chicago "Bean" is never without visitors, even well into the evening. This was a 12-13 minute exposure, and notice that the only subject visible is a photographer (lower right).

The trick is to get the camera high enough that you can see spaces between people. Despite putting the tripod on a picnic table, everyone here appears on the same level. Notice that the reflection in the sculpture is from a high angle, and shows an apparently empty plaza. It is less sharp than I hoped, mainly because several people climbed on the same picnic table with their iPhones, before park docents cleared them off.

Without visitors the bean is much less interesting.

That's the difference between "Street Photography" and photography of streets ;) Works for bridges too.

the street around my place were deserted Friday- because every single person was at the grocery store, Costco, & the farmers markets!

edit: photo for illustrative purposes only- not actual reality

Today

I read that Isaac Newton Isaac (not yet Sir) was in his early 20s when the Great Plague of London hit in 1665. He was a student at Cambridge, which sent students home to continue their studies. He practiced "social distancing" by retreating to his family's estate in the countryside for over a year, where he produced some of his most famous work. First, he laid down the fundamentals of calculus, and then optics (photographic optics are mostly Newtonian geometric optics). Outside his window was the famous apple tree that helped inspire his theory of gravity, although the story of how Newton sat under the tree, was bonked on the head by an apple and suddenly understood theories of gravity and motion, is largely apocryphal.

So, if you have a bored college student who is suddenly back living at home, as is the case with several of my friends, remind them of Sir Isaac.

the story of how Newton sat under the tree, was bonked on the head by an apple and suddenly understood theories of gravity and motion, is largely apocryphal

I don't think Schrodinger had a dead cat either.

story of how Newton sat under the tree, was bonked on the head by an apple and suddenly understood theories of gravity and motion, is largely apocryphal.

But surely Einstein riding in a moving tram looking at the clock in the stationary bell tower and noticing that it was going slower than his pocket watch is the true story of how he came up with Special Relativity.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

—Isaac Newton

He might just be ok with the apocryphal.

I don't think Schrodinger had a dead cat either.

No, his cat was half dead and half alive. At least until someone looked.

I don't think Schrodinger had a dead cat either.

Not for long anyway.......

Nostalgic Fun on a rainy cloistered day.....

I read that Isaac Newton Isaac (not yet Sir) was in his early 20s when the Great Plague of London hit in 1665. He was a student at Cambridge, which sent students home to continue their studies. He practiced "social distancing" by retreating to his family's estate in the countryside for over a year, where he produced some of his most famous work. First, he laid down the fundamentals of calculus, and then optics (photographic optics are mostly Newtonian geometric optics). Outside his window was the famous apple tree that helped inspire his theory of gravity, although the story of how Newton sat under the tree, was bonked on the head by an apple and suddenly understood theories of gravity and motion, is largely apocryphal.

 

So, if you have a bored college student who is suddenly back living at home, as is the case with several of my friends, remind them of Sir Isaac.

Inspiring, but Newton’s advantage was, he didn’t have Netflix, or email. :)