Margaret and I went Downtown recently with our cameras just to walk, talk, and photograph whatever was interesting. We spent most of our time on Monument Circle, the heart of our city. We both photographed plenty of Downtown’s architecture, but I also photographed people on the busy Circle. I shot my tiny Canon PowerShot S95.
What a concept: a pedal-powered beer bar. Some of my co-workers did this once and said it was a blast. The animated red-shirted woman was a perfect balance of friendly and fun but in charge.
I don’t drink beer anymore — I’m sensitive to gluten and beer just ties my guts up in a knot. It’s a shame, because this looks like fun.
I shot this one from the hip. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried that. Naturally, the original is at a wonky angle. Photoshop let me straighten and crop this in just a minute.
Lots of people came all the way Downtown just to keep their heads in their phones. Margaret interrupted the plaid-shirted fellow to ask if he’d take our photo together. He leapt right into action, mentioning he was a videographer. He handled Margaret’s DSLR like he was born holding one.
I still have a lot of anxiety over being detected when I photograph strangers on the street. It sure looks like the person on the right noticed what I was up to. Cringe!
For all of these shots, I stood way back and zoomed to the max. The S95 doesn’t zoom super deep — just 3.8x, equivalent to a 105mm lens on a 35mm camera. But given the camera’s 10-megapixel resolution, I can crop deeply to my subject and still have a usably large image.
Could my S95 ultimately be a crutch? I hear of other street photographers shooting film rangefinder cameras with fixed lenses of around 50mm. Wow, how close they have to come! I admire their boldness.
