"Girl Distracted"

[Omaroo]

Olympus OM-D E-M5 & Olympus 75mm f/1.8

An impulse shot taken while this girl was standing in deep shadow at the end of the alley in Angel Place - Sydney.

Low quality JPG - reasonably aggressive levels tweak in Aperture.

Thanks for looking :)

[gary]

Nice backlighting Chris!

[Omaroo]

Thanks Gary. I'm surprised that I was able to extract so much tonality from her facial areas. Damned difficult conditions. :)

[sheeny]

Good light Chris. You've done well there.

I had a go at some street this morning for the challenge... dismal failure. Using the E510, 200ASA, f/22, manual focus set between 3m and infinity... not one sharp shot taken from the hip. Not sure if I'm moving the camera too much when I shoot from the hip (some I took while I was walking, which is probably not smart). It was too much for the IS anyway. I suspect f/22 was too small - need to try a compromise aperture to gain a bit of speed. Oh well...

Al.

[RB]

I love the back-lighting on her and tonality Chris.
It's a magazine quality image.

Nice to see some shots in colour too.

Well done.

PS don't be surprised if we bump into one another one day down there, I love the city beat.

[Miaplacidus]

Nice photo.

What did you tell her boyfriend?

[Omaroo]

Thanks Al :) Looks like it turned out OK, and really wasn't even taken as a serious shot to begin with, which is a surprise that it even worked at all. Luck of the draw I guess.

Interesting to hear about your own adventure. Good on you for getting out and giving it a go! :thumbsup: One thing..... you'd be surprised what you can recover from your initial reaction. Cropping severely (keeping the rule of thirds in mind), convert to black and white and add grain. Plenty of it. Adjust contrast values to suit, but typically keep them high. You'd be amazed at what was once considered a right-off can be turned into something brilliant. F/22 is probably a bit difficult - as you said, speed is the answer. It lets you shoot whilst walking - absorbing movement. I've found that it's better to lose a little DOF in favour of your ability to stop motion. Have a go! :D

[Omaroo]

Thanks Andrew - much appreciated, it's a very nice thing for you to say so. You don't come across these images much in street - most is done in broad sunlight. I'd dearly love to go to Melbourne soon and photograph people in the restaurant/café alleys around Hardware Lane. It'd be sensational in terms of the dappled light. If you're in town one reasonably often, maybe hookup one day? We might be able to convince Deeno to come along and make a top day of it. I'd actually like to stay in there long enough one day to shoot some dusk and night time stuff too. Let me know if you're interested! I love the city too - there are millions of people just doing their thing...

[Omaroo]

Thanks Brian. LOL :) I'm thinking that she might have been trying to call him at the time! "Hey, honey - there's a madman trying to take my photo! What do I do?" :lol:

[sheeny]

Its been a long time since I've done any real street. Not since I stopped using the OM-1! Of course everything was manual on the OM-1... if I was using my head this morning, I would've gone all manual, not just aperture setting. I stupidly didn't check exposure/shutter speed at that aperture, and just assumed the camera would take care of it.:rolleyes:

Stupid is as stupid does...:lol:

Al.

[Omaroo]

I'm looking at buying an OM-1 and an OM-4Ti soon. Love them! :) F/22 is a big ask for the camera to play nicely. Oh well.. LOL

To tell you the truth - I shoot, mainly, in full auto and use AF! I'm becoming to trust the OM-D's decision making processes, and its AF is incredible. I do run around at times in full manual too, and when you have more than three or four seconds to set things up, the results are usually great too.

Here's case in point - a complete reject turned into something that I actually quite like. Whether anyone else does is, well, up to them - but at least it's a photograph that people expect of street shot greased in at the last moment. :lol: