When I'm on my travels, I sometimes blog
My 135 mm project
On Tuesday Sep 4 I decided to put some time and effort into a new project of mine, which I have been thinking about for quite some time. I call it my 135 mm project.
I'm a big fan of wide angle street photography and the feeling of urgency and presence which it can give, when you shoot from a close distance. And this is a big part of what I've been doing for the last 10-15 years.
But I do feel the need to be constantly developing my eye, myself as a photographer and do new things.
In the back of my mind, there was always the memory of the 135 mm f/2.8 lens my parents got as part of our family's very first SLR package. And the love I had for that lens. Back then, I mostly shot portraits and sports with that lens. But now my plan is to try and shoot street with it. Not hard at all to do, you might think? It's even a method sometimes recommended for beginners who don't dare to get close to their subjects. But the results are normally flat and completely uninteresting photographically. The subjects you catch can of course be interesting and/or beautiful, but I've always found it extremely hard to reach one of my goals with my photography using a telephoto lens. A goal I found words for in a quote from Garry Winogrand: he wanted "to make the photograph more interesting than what's in it".
Unless you somehow manage to master the advantages a telephoto lens brings: The ability to make subjects which are far apart seem close to each other. Like Saul Leiter. Or one of the many young interesting photographers who look to him as their main inspiration.
So on Tuesday, this was the challenge of the day. To get a start with this project. My plan was to find a foreground which adds visual interest, find a main subject in the middle ground and a background with either some more visual interest or at least not something that ruins the shot.
Did I succeed on my first attempts? Maybe not, what do you think? I guess success is a gradual thing, right? If I got something OK on this day, I could get something good on my next try? Even something great eventually? :-)
The overall goal is to have fun with this photography thing, so seeking "greatness" is not something that should ever get in the way of that!
So, armed with my newly bought used Zeiss 135 mm f/2.8 lens, I went out and randomly walked north from my hotel, instead of the usual south towards Shinjuku station. I found myself in a residential alley with an abnormal amount of restaurants. On closer inspection, Korean restaurants. I had stumbled upon Shin-Okubo Koreatown! Which worked out great, I spent about four hours there, including a lunch break. Editing and relaxing the rest of the day.
Be well, everybody!
Niklas
