Son – Dad could you give me a lift into Kensington.
Dad – I’ve got to take the dog for a walk.
Son – We don’t have a dog.
Dad – What about the guinea pig?
Son – Please…. you could do a bit of street photography!
Mmmm. How could I refuse such an opportunity? Now I do not consider myself a ‘street’ photographer. But I could give architectural photography a go and in the words of Charles Dickens character Wilkins Micawber “Something will turn up.”
Having the limitations of time, 24 exposures and a single lens makes me consider things more carefully than when I am shooting digitally. Perhaps that’s why street photography, where you have to respond to things quickly and spontaneously, doesn’t come naturally.
Which camera to take?? I decided on the newly acquired Olympus OM 10 with a single 50mm 1.8f lens. I had previously replaced the lights seals and wanted to test it. The OM 10 came out in the late 70’s and is a manual focus aperture priority camera, you choose the aperture situated on the lens barrel and the camera chooses the shutter speed. It is light, compact and I’m told a joy to use , only one way to find out. Time to load up the camera with Agfa Vista 200 film!
I really enjoyed my time on the streets of Kensington and am pleased with the resulting photos. It would have been all too easy to make excuses, ‘I can’t be bothered’, ‘ I don’t do street photography’, ‘ there’s not enough time’ and miss out on an opportunity to practise my photography. It took me out of my comfort zone and as a result increased my understanding of my hobby.
How did the camera perform? No light leaks!! So my procedure outlined in a previous post seems to work. I prefer aperture priority manual focus cameras and I really enjoyed the Olympus OM 10. It was light and easy to use. The controls are well laid out allowing the photographer to concentrate on composition and not too distracted with the camera. The camera had a tendency to under-expose. I don’t know if this is a fault with the model or just my camera. As a consequence I felt I had to do more post processing than I would normally do.
arhphotographic 