Would-Be Celebrity?

In Hollywood, where this photo was taken, celebrities usually avoid

bothersome photographers from behind sunglasses and by wearing

unobtrusive clothes. This young woman, however, out for a night on the

town in Hollywood, seems to beg to be noticed -- is she a celebrity, a

celebrity wannabe, or just out for a good time? (I don't knowingly

photographic celebrities and am not paparazzo). Your ratings and

critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very

critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please

share your superior photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

Notice that the majority of this photo is composed of blurs.

Taken at night with a very common lens with a minimum opening (f 3.3~4.5), it was a test of my ability to use an inferior lens to take a good photo.

I focused on the bridge of her nose as best I could, shot several shots as she moved around rather wildly with her group and took the best of the bunch.

Notice that focus is 'right on' on the bridge of her nose while her cheeks and the lenses are blurred slightly and the background is totally blurred. With an APS-C sensor and a fairly small aperture lens, this still isolated (at the lens's maximum aperture) a fairly narrow depth of field. You don't need a f 1.2 lens to narrow depth of field to get a good shot at night.

I do recommend in night shooting doing a 'c' series of shots if someone is not posing for a portrait -- in some there will be blinking or other behavior that is not useful, and 'c' drive will allow at least one and possibly two or more 'good' to 'better' shots to choose from.

That's how I prefer to shoot portraits when things are dynamic. Single shots are fine with stationary subjects, but with gyrating subjects, you just cannot predict, and the great shot might occur just after you've released the shutter and before you can rewind (with film or single shot).

This turned out surprisingly well, although youths tend to score very poorly while the aged tend to score (and rate) very highly -- it's just a rating bias, I think.

I'm glad this one amused you. Thanks for the feedback; it's always valuable, especially from you -- a very trusted source.

John (Crosley)

John;

Making a good photo with an inferior lens has been a quest of mine for some time now. I have gone so far as to hack the lenses out of thrift store purchased old film P&S cameras and glue the lenses onto body caps for my DSLR.

The narrow dof and the sense of motion implied by that blur works wonders here.

I am hardly such a purist.

I just shoot with whatever's handy; and if it's an old lens, the trick is to see if I can get a good capture with that old lens, even if it's an inferior lens with a slow aperture, as here.

Sometimes there can be surprises, and as you well know, photography is full of surprises, which is one of its addictive qualities for shooters like you and me.

I always like to shoot with the latest and greatest lenses, and at one time thought that I only could or would shoot with a huge collection of the world's finest lenses -- anything else would lessen my ability to get those captures that are elusive enough anyway.

And perhaps I was right; the number of captures increases greatly with super-fast focusing lenses with large apertures -- there's just no denying that. But there's always the temptation to shoot at maximum aperture, which also is the fastest aperture when shooting in low light such as indoors or at night, and that can mean that some interesting shots and techniques go overlooked.

So, from time to time, I will put on an older, slower, lens, or a lens that came as a 'standard' lens on a film camera, as here, and just shoot away, and be somewhat surprised at the results. Surprisingly, I was told by a camera tech to whom I denigrated this particular lens that he thought particularly highly of it, though it was not considered 'fast' -- and it came long ago as a 'standard' zoom lens on an older film Nikon. In fact, he praised it.

In any case, the end result is what counts. With 'S' lenses, I make many more 'tries' than with less capable lenses, and therefore get fewer shots, but still prefer zooms, though I have had my essays with prime lenses -- just as I did when I was a youth. But prime lenses require that the photographer stand a certain, fixed distance from the subject, and that can make certain interesting captures impossible or impracticable, and cause many interesting captures to be missed, when shooting 'street' (no problem in the studio of course), and of course prime lenses often are much sharper, when shooting under such controlled conditions.

For myself, I still prefer zoom lenses for the ability to 'get in there, get the shot in a second or two, and get out, often undetected', and thus avoid confrontation, when shooting street. I am not averse to confronting many subjects, and enjoy discourse with many of my subjects, but one must be careful, and safety is an important consideration for any photographer . . . . not everyone enjoys having their photograph taken because they sometimes ascribe wrong or objectionable purposes to the photograph that have no relatiionship to reality, and to get into a discourse (read that 'argument') with such people often serves no purpose and can expose the street photographer to potential further danger.

Again, it seldom is the 'subject' themselves who are the danger, but the officious interloper who sees it as their God-given duty to defend the alleged 'rights' of others, and of course, in almost every instance, those people are dead wring in their suppositions about those rights, and they're just troublemakers.

In such conditions, if it comes to that, the police (in America or elsewhere often) the police often can be the photographer's friend).

In an instance, as here, the woman clearly loved to be photographed, sought it out, and obviously was hoping for it -- why else would one wear such outsize sunglasses in a famous tourist retreat at night than to get attention?

Remember, it seldom is the 'subject' but the interloper who presents the greatest danger to the street photographer, and that person seldom can be picked out of a crowd, and therefore presents the greatest risk, because a risk assessment cannot be made since the person is unseen and unrecognized.

(sorry for meandering off-topic a little bit, but it's important for those who read these wanderings, in hopes of becoming better 'street' photographers . . . . and judging from comments and some e-mail, there are a number of such indidividuals who are readers.)

Best to you, again, Gordon.

John (Crosley)

You seldom write much but are a great contributor, so when you break silence, I listen carefully, especially when it comes to photographing pretty young women in Los Angeles.

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. You take all sorts of wonderful photos -- I take an occasional good one, of a young beautiful woman.

John (Crosley)