Okay, because that's what I was thinking. Yeah.
So I'd had this idea written down for a while of, what if I took a few of my favourite photos
from well renowned street photographers and try to create them out in the world? Now,
obviously, recreating a street photo is nearly impossible possible if you're relying on a candid moment
to take place in front of you. So I decided to work on this particular project with a model in
Manchester. I decided to choose five different photos from famous street photographers that I could then
use as references for my work on this project. We're looking at photos from Nana
Heitman, Joel MEYERWITZ, Elliot, Erwitz,
bruce Davidson and one of my all time favourites. Bruce
Gilden. We're not going to be directly copying these shots, but taking different elements of them as
influence for this photography project. We're going to get into the process behind the scenes and final
image comparisons of this project. But first, I just want to ask the question, is
posed photography in the street still street photography? There are also famous examples of
street photography where the photo was in fact staged or posed. A lot of street
photography you'll see on the internet these days are actually street portraits where it's working with someone in the street
to pose. And isn't that posed street photography? Does
street photography need to be candid? Can it be posed and
can it even be designed and fully staged as we are in this particular video?
I think the reason why I've been attracted to doing a project like this, working with a model in this sort of
environment, is because the sort of photos I would like to take in the street of people are
kind of up close and personal, but at the same time, I respect people quite a lot. I don't want
to disrupt what they're doing just so that I can get a photo or two that
I think might be nice to have in the future. So working with the model in this way sort
of frees that up, because both of you are dedicated to creating the photos. And it's a
very collaborative process compared to picking a stranger on the street and just hoping
they're going to bring something to the table. All of the gear I was using for the shoot was just my Sony A seven
C. We used a 28 mil F two on a few shots and then the 50
mil 1.8 on the other shots used a K and F diffusion philtre on
just one particular shot that I will talk about. And then also an off camera Godot's flash
with no modifier on the Bruce Gilden shot, obviously. And then, of course, our
model for this shoot, nigel, who brought insane energy for this whole shoot. It was great to work with him
first time we met, and he gave it 110% the whole time we were doing this.
Next, I would like to talk about the development process for this project. This segment is brought to you
by Milano. I have been a long time user of Milano in both the free version and the pro version. If you
are unfamiliar with Miller Note, please pay extra attention to this process and cheque out the
free version in the link below. Once I decided I wanted to work with Nigel on this project, I went about
picking out different photos from Magnum street photographers and other street photographers, from black
and white colour. A few decades ago and much more recently, I brought together all of my images
into Millennial until I pretty much thinned them down to the five that we have here. Just making little
notes on where I think could be a good location in Manchester. Once I picked out the images that I wanted
to use as references, and then the characteristics of those that I was trying to take influence from.
Some might have been the colour scheme or the composition, others might have been the equipment used to
shoot it, and others were using natural light to balance exposure in specific ways. Once I'd
mapped out all of this, I just made little annotations to say what I was going to need to be able to accomplish
each shot. Having the Millennial app on the shoot while I was with Nigel made it so much easier for me to be able to
visually communicate what we were trying to do and then also being able to say, okay, cool, we're going to
start this location first because the lights like this. Then we're going to move around here and
change set up. It's very easy to be able to think which shot is priority and be able
to change it on the fly. So if you've not yet tried Miller Note, cheque out the free version in the link below this
video. Okay, so let's get into the shoot and how we recreated these images. First, we started at a multi
storey car park in Northern Quarter. And this was the recreate banana heitman shot. Her shot actually had
two subjects in the frame, but I just knew I wanted to get a top down, slightly
compressed little intersection of roads. And from this multi story, there was a couple of different
crossroads we could use. But I ended up sending Nigel over to sort of a corner where we had a nice
hard line of light. He could then pose in the middle of the street and then get a long shadow. And then there's
also a bit of traffic of people walking through, so we managed to use them in the composition as
well. For me here, the main thing that I was taking influence from was using that high vantage
point and still creating something that told the story. So we have Nigel on the phone
walking through the street, and then some people walking around. Then randomly, this burglar alarm went off literally
in the building next to where we were shooting from,
us. Nigel and I were on the phone while we were sort of
directing the set up, and it was just completely caught. It was off guard. Right next door to this multi story car
park was this alleyway which we use for our bridge Gilding inspired photo. And for this particular
shot, I wanted to shoot on the 28 mil because it is a little bit of a wider focal length that Bruce is
using in this particular shot. And I knew that it was going to be black and white harsh flash off
camera. So for the setup, it was just the A seven C, the 28 mil F two,
and then my off camera go dot flash. For the setting that we actually chose, I just wanted
something kind of tight because the particular image I was using as a reference was
a woman on a payphone. And rather than going across Manchester to a payphone
that we knew was there, instead, we just chose to go on this street instead. So we played
around with a few different poses, just mucked around a bit. We had this bicycle up on the wall behind and
just a few lines happening in the background with this alleyway. And I think, actually, this was one
of my favourite shots that we got, mainly because I really like Bruce Guilden style of photography in these
shots, having that sort of effect and then just having like, an unapologetic black
and white lots of grain, I realised what we ended up getting here. Our third location was
kind of a rough car park in Northern Quarter, and this was to copy a shot from
Joel Myrait's. The main thing that I wanted to get from this Joel Myrait shot was just his colour.
So a lot of it really is down to the film stock. And this particular shot of this construction worker, for
me, was just like, okay, cool, I can see this in Manchester already. As soon as I saw that
setting, I could think of a couple of these car parks that would work. So the spot that we chose, because of what Nigel
was wearing, I wanted to find something with a bit more colour to make a pop in the foreground. So luckily,
it was actually this barrier. At first, it was kind of like, well, we're not going to include that. But once
I thought about the colour scheme of John Merrowitz, I was like, I would love to have something with a bit of
a brighter tone that I could then play with in the edit. In terms of the composition and the focal length, I played
around with both the 50 ML and the 28 ML. Found the 50 mil was much more pleasing in this
particular shot. And then also the composition was taking influence. Although we didn't
have the perfect larger skyline in Manchester because of where we
were, I definitely think in terms of the colour that we got and the setting. I really enjoyed getting
this one. I've always been a fan of Joel Merwitz's poppy, vibrant colours in
the street photography. Next, we headed over to Islington Wharf in An Coach to recreate a
shot that Bruce Davidson did on a subway platform. And the main reason why I wanted to go to Islington
Wharf was just because I knew in the evening we might get the right direction of
light, which luckily perfectly did. So down it is a tinwarp. There's a canal going through
the middle. So we chose to go up next to a canal boat and then try and recreate this shot. Then once
we paired up the sunglasses and the sunlight popping through sunglasses, I then also had a
diffusion philtre on my 28 mil lens just to soften things up and really soften the shadows.
I knew shooting towards the sun, I wanted to try and retain my highlights. So using that diffusion boosted
the shadows just a bit. And then in post I was able to balance it a little bit more and then
actually add a tiny bit of noise reduction just to sort of soften out the detail. The reason why I chose
this shot from Bruce Davidson is just because it still feels quite modern. I think it was a shot in
the it feels like it could have been taken last year. Just in terms of
the vibrance and this colour scheme, it's like kind of a midnight blue happening in the
shadows and that just really caught my eye. And I knew among the other shots that I was
doing, like against Bruce Gilden, for example, it's a completely different colour scheme.
So doing these shots, like back to back was really interesting, trying to think completely
differently between setup. Lastly, I wanted to recreate a shot from Elliot Owen. And
Elliott Erwitt is one of my favourite street photographers because a lot of his work is really comical.
Like how he has managed to stumble across so many funny moments and just noticing little funny
micro moments in the world. It's amazing. But a lot of his shots that I really
like involve dogs and couples and stuff like that. So I knew for posing with a model, I
had to look for something that I could sort of take influence from and just work with one person. So there's this
particular silhouette shot taken in Paris where you have a couple with broken umbrellas and someone else
leaping in the foreground with an umbrella. I just thought, you know what? In an coats, I know a couple of streets
where this could work. So Nigel and I found this one particular shot. I essentially just put my 50
mil right on the floor looking up. And then we did a few high burst modes
of Nigel running through the frame, jumping across. And again, the main thing I was taking influence from here was just
playing with the silhouette factor. It could have been done without the umbrella. We could have done something completely
different. But I just wanted to think about creating shape in a
silhouette in street photography. If I was going to create this in just DayToday candid street photography, it
would be a case of looking for somewhere where all my subjects would backlit and then just waiting. But it
was good in this situation that we were able to just play muck around and stage the shot on burst mode a
few times. Lastly, I just want to go over the image comparisons. So we're going to look at the reference
images and then look at the final edited images that I managed to come out with. Practising my
photography on a project like this isn't something that I've really done, I think probably since university or
college when I was practising film and you'd be set a task because rather than going out just
trying to shoot for the sake of shooting, I went out to actually create something specific. It
made me realise that outside of my professional work, I can
do projects like this. Obviously not always going to be copying other people's work, but just trying to
put together your own projects with your own direction and just thinking, okay,
well, I can just go shoot this if I want. And whether or not it counts as street
photography is up for debate, I think.
I wouldn't say it's candid documentary photography
or journalistic photography. It's creating real life moments in the
street. And I definitely enjoy Candy street photography, and that's something
that I want to be continuing to do long term. But I definitely think if I had ideas
for projects like this in the future, like original concepts, I would definitely go out and shoot
it and still class it as street photography. There's not always going to be a perfect way to
get the image that you want. And if you have the idea, waiting for it to happen
naturally in front of you would just be a waste of an idea versus working with someone,
putting the project together and putting out the images like I have here. At least
this way I get to actually see it come into fruition, I think, as well, taking a few other photographers
styles and trying to recreate them has made me realise you can see where these
photographers have found their voice in street photography. I am definitely .5%
of the weight there. I've got like so far to go until I even know what I'm trying to say. Documenting the process
and experimenting with different projects like this I hope will help me sort of eliminate
the things that I don't want to do. I definitely love Elliot Owett's approach to street photography, that
comedic sense. And then also Bruce Gildon is street photography. That is so far from what
I would ever do. But that's why I'm interested in it like, just the obnoxiousness of flashing
someone in the face in the street and running away is just like,
how do you even have the courage to do that? It's just insane. But, yeah, I've
really enjoyed putting this product together. I hope you've enjoyed watching this video. If you haven't already, go
cheque out, the Megapixgills Discoloured service in the peak and comment and description of this video. Cheque out
miller note in the description below to download the free version and I will see you in the next one. Bye.