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First Impressions: Sony FE 400 F2.8 GM OSS

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First Impressions: Sony FE F2.8 GM OSS

We first gazed upon Sony’s new FE 400mm F2.8 GM OSS lens at CP+ earlier this year. This past weekend I had the chance to use it in-person at a Major League Soccer match between the New York Redbulls and Dallas FC.

Paired with the Sony a9 and vertical grip, the combination easily met - and in some cases, exceeded - what I’ve come to expect in terms of AF performance, bokeh and handling for a pro sports camera+lens combo. Continue reading for my first impressions from the field, and check out our full gallery from the match below:

See our Sony FE 400mm F2.8 GM OSS samples

Fast AF speed

ISO 1000 | 1/2000 sec | F2.8

This shooting opportunity - arranged by Sony - felt like the perfect real world scenario to put a 400mm F2.8 through it paces. I’ve shot a lot of soccer at the collegiate level over the years, mostly with a 300mm F2.8, but never at the professional level. Despite my inexperience, I walked away with a hit rate close to 98% mostly using the Zone area AF mode; this really impressed me.

Though I initially set the camera up with the intention of using back button AF, I ended up using the half press shutter to activate autofocus nearly the whole time. Most sports photographers would avoid this as it can lead to missed shots: decoupling the two allows you to hit the shutter without the risk of driving focus onto the wrong subject or into a hunt. But the Sony drove focus in the correct direction, locking onto my intended subject, pretty much every time.

Prior to the match, Sony talked about how the lens' design had been optimized for speed and super fast tracking even at the a9's top burst speed of 20 fps. I mostly shot at 10 fps, but found the lens kept up marvelously.

Beautiful bokeh and background separation

ISO 1250 | 1/1000 sec | F2.8

While I started the game with the lens slightly stopped down, I opted to open the 400mm up to F2.8 as the sun began to set. These wide open shots in particular display beautiful background separation, with lovely bokeh, thanks in part to an 11-blade circular aperture. For sports photographers, the quality of a lens' bokeh is obviously second to sharpness and AF performance, but lovely bokeh sure is nice to have.

A little lighter

At 2.9kg / 6.4lb., the lens weighs about 1kg less than the Canon 400mm F2.8, but make no mistake - this is still a heavy piece of kit. Sony says it’s light enough to shoot hand-held. I'll admit I'm not the world's strongest man, and 15 minutes of free-arming that lens definitely left me a little sore the next day.

Sore arms aside, it's worth calling out that Sony's 400mm feels exceptionally balanced. This is because much of the glass, and therefore weight, is located toward the back of the barrel resulting in a lens that doesn't tend to pull forward/down as much as some similar telephoto primes. The build quality is also excellent - exactly what you'd expect of a pro-level tele. Above is the lens' magnesium alloy shell.

Compatibility with teleconverters

ISO 1250 | 1/1000 sec | F4 | 560mm (1.4x teleconverter)

The 400mm F2.8 is compatible with both Sony’s 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. The former provides an equivalent field of view of 560mm and F4, the later 800mm and F5.6. The above is an example taken with the 1.4x teleconverter.

Other bits

As you would expect for $12,000, the lens has image stabilization with three different modes for various sports/action scenarios. It also has a customizable ring - located right in front of the focus ring - that can be set to do things like engage the APS-C crop mode on the camera, for more reach. There's also a drop-in filter tray near the lens mount.

One of my favorites things about this lens is a bit more superficial: the snazzy orange ring around the front of the carbon fiber hood. Perhaps in years to come, we'll see that orange ring more often along the sidelines.

Final thoughts

ISO 1250 | 1/1250 sec | F2.8

To many, the 400mm F2.8 was the final piece of the puzzle that had been missing in Sony’s glass line up. With this new telephoto prime, Sony is getting closer to being able to claim that it has a lens to meet the needs of any working photographer.

But now that the upper end of the market has been addressed, I implore you Sony, address the needs of the more modest end too. This $12K 400mm F2.8 is a huge accomplishment, but how about a reasonably-fast sub-$500 prime? A 35mm F1.8 perhaps...

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June 27, 2018 at 09:00AM

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Sample gallery: Sony FE 400mm F2.8 GM OSS

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June 27, 2018 at 09:00AM

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How To Plan a Model Portfolio Shoot

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In comparison with typical portraiture, model portfolio shoots represent a more narrow genre of photography, with more specific requirements and rules. This doesn’t mean that fashion and modeling shoots are less creative than any other genre; however, they have to meet certain criteria set by various modeling agencies. Modeling photographs also have to make high-quality prints that can show up in prestigious catalogs and portfolios, which is a great challenge for anyone new to the world of fashion.

We’ll cover the most important requirements of model portfolio shoots in the following list and offer some insights when it comes to fashion photography in general.

Ask the Agency About Their Needs

Before you even start preparing your photo shoot, you have to make a contract with either a model or a modeling agency. Junior models rarely sign such contracts on their own – a modeling agency is their medium. The situation is different with more seasoned models who know what kind of photo shoot they need in order to expand their portfolio.

In any case, the choice of set and setting in modeling photography should be up to models and their agencies. A photographer should be able to make the best out of the client’s initial idea and possibly enrich this idea it by adding a personal touch to it.

Develop Ideas And Concepts

Once you know what will be the main theme of your model portfolio shoot (a fashion agency can help you with this), one of the first things you should do is to develop various ideas and concepts. These concepts can revolve around a makeup idea, a hair idea or a set idea. They can also revolve around wardrobe or even location. Sometimes the type of lighting you’ll use will have an important impact on storytelling and atmosphere.

If you’re lacking creative concepts, some influences you can certainly use to conjure up ideas are music, film or literature.

Choose Indoors And Outdoors Locations

No matter if you’re shooting at home, in a commercial studio or on location, you will have to decide on location well before the photo shoot, so that your model has all the necessary information and is entirely ready.

The best option is to combine indoors and outdoors locations, because the majority of modeling agencies require portfolios to feature a variety of scenes and lighting conditions. Also, it’s really valuable to include images shot in natural light because such images can reveal more natural look of the model.

Capture Variations In Expression

Variation in model’s facial expressions and body language is truly important. You never want all the images to feature just one expression – you should ask your model to play happy, sad, confident, melancholic, sleepy or any other mood. Variations of similar poses with small differences in facial expressions should be tried as well, such as mouth open, half open or closed, eyes shut or looking down. If your model isn’t shy, you can put some music on and ask her to dance. Dancing often produces a sense of fun and helps relax the model.

It‘s really useful to shoot many images because even some small differences between two similar images can create an entirely different atmosphere. For instance, if you’re doing a three hour shoot, it’s advisable to take at least 300 images. In the end, you can choose 30 or 50 to show to the agency.

Find Poses That Go Along With The Wardrobe

When it comes to poses, every fashion photographer should have a wide variety of references to choose from. Some photographers even like to sketch poses if they are good at drawing. This is not necessary – it’s enough to have a good list of potential poses prepared. These poses shouldn’t be same for every model – they have to go along with wardrobe, set idea, mood, lighting style and so on.

Buy Props For Your Sets

This is something optional, but since many model portfolio shoots feature various props, it’s good to think about them and find adequate solutions. Many props are quite inexpensive, such as various chairs, tables, pillows and so on. But it case you want to find a very specific kind of prop, such as a beautiful vintage chair, you’ll have to start visiting antique shops a few days prior to your photo shoot because it can take some time to find a prop that truly fits.

Even though modeling photography might sound like something overly commercial, this is not entirely true. A great collaboration between photographers and models can result in stunning images which are as creative as any other type of portraits. Another benefit of fashion shoots is the fact that they can easily get a lot of exposure, which can kickstart a career in photography.

The post How To Plan a Model Portfolio Shoot appeared first on Light Stalking.

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June 27, 2018 at 08:00AM

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June 27, 2018 at 07:37AM

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I’ve gotten several questions lately that go something along the lines of, “I’ve relocated, and my photos have my former address and phone number in the metadata contact section. Is there a way to update the contact information for all photos?” Yes, yes there is. There’s a couple of ways you can do this type of update, so let’s run through the options.

Updating a Single Photo

To update an editable metadata field on any given photo, just select that photo and expand the Metadata panel. If the Default view doesn’t display the field(s) you need, click the drop-down menu in the panel header and choose IPTC to access the bulk of the editable fields.

Click into the field you want to edit, and type in your updated info, then press Enter (or click into another field).

Shortcuts

If you need to edit multiple fields you can press the Tab key to move to the next field down. Press Shift+Tab to move up.

If you are entering information unique to each photo into the same field of multiple photos, you can hold the CMD (PC: Ctrl) key and use the left or right arrow keys to move between photos while keeping that field active. For example, say you wanted to add a unique caption to a series of photos you would click into the Caption field on the first, add your caption, and instead of pressing Enter, hold the CMD/Ctrl key and press the left or right arrow key to move to the Caption field of the next photo. Repeat until all captions are complete.

Updating Multiple Photos with the Same Info

If you have a batch of (any number) of photos and you want to enter the same information into a given field on all of them, try this:

Step One: Press G to jump to Grid view. Grid view is where you want to be for batch processing things like this.

Step Two: Select all of the photos you want to update.

Step Three: Expand the Metadata panel, and type the updated info into the desired field, then press Enter.

Step Four: When prompted, choose Apply to Selected to apply that change to all selected photos.

Not much different than updating a single photo. Here’s another option, let’s say you’ve already gone ahead and updated one photo and now you want to sync that change across a selection of photos. Follow steps 1 and 2 from above to select the photos but keeping the updated photo as the active photo, then click the Sync Metadata button below the Metadata panel.

 

This will open the Synchronize Metadata dialog box. Find the field(s) you updated in the active photo (most selected) and you should see that information in the dialog box. Check the box next to the field(s) you want to sync and click the Synchronize button. All selected photos will then be synchronized for the checked field.

Keep that in mind if you move, change your phone number, want to update a caption, or any other metadata you need to keep in sync.

The post Making Bulk Metadata Updates in Lightroom Classic appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

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June 27, 2018 at 03:11AM

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These Wildlife Photos Aren’t What They Seem

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My photo project Wildlife is a series of black-and-white film photos showing some of the most amazing and beautiful animals in the world. But these photos aren’t what they appear to be.

These photos were all shot at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I carefully chose my use of film camera and a high ISO film with the maximum amount of grain (Delta 3200 or HP5 pushed to 1600). The idea was to use the features of the film and camera to hide any hint of fakery.

In person, the painted backdrops fool no one, but through the single lens of a camera, they are transformed into sprawling landscapes. The animals themselves border on the uncanny valley when viewed in real life, but the thick grain hides any and all imperfections in the taxidermy.

What is left is an image that can be easily seen as real and honest.

You can see the whole project on my website.

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About the author: Lucus Landers is a Brooklyn-based photographer and camera maker. You can find more of his work on his website and Instagram.

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June 26, 2018 at 02:32PM

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Photography can be an expensive hobby, with equipment improvement really making a hole in your wallet. What if I told you there was an inexpensive piece of equipment, which can greatly improve your work! You’d want to know what that is right? Well, step forward the humble camera filter.

Although in truth, there are some camera filter systems that are quite pricey, you can also get ones that are a great value. So let’s take a closer look at what camera filters are all about.

What is a camera filter?

In the age of smart phone filters, it’s worth explaining what the term “filter” used to mean in photography. A filter is something that attaches to the front of your camera lens and is used to alter or adjust the light coming into the camera in some way.

Filters come in two different shapes

• Circular Filters – These filters screw directly onto the front of your lens. You’ll need to buy a filter of the same diameter of the front of your lens (look at the back of your lens cap for the correct size). It is also possible to buy step-up or step-down rings that will allow you to attach your filter to camera lenses of different diameters.
• Square Filters – These sometimes come as a rectangular filter, and always as part of a system that allows you to attach them to the front of your lens. There is typically a bracket, which itself attaches to a round ring, that you will screw onto the front of your lens. Systems like this make stacking filters easier and are better for graduated filters.

There are in fact many different filters which you can use, and not all of them are going to be mentioned here. Many people like to use a UV filter to protect the glass on the front of their lens. This is a functional use, and this article seeks to look at the creative use of lens filters.

A few notable omissions to this list are the starburst filters, and the softeners/diffusers used in portrait photography. With all this covered, let’s take a look at the five best camera filters that you can use to enhance your photos.

#1 – Circular Polarizing Filter

The circular polarizer is a great filter, it’s a must-have in your bag. Its primary use is for landscape photography, though it can be useful for outdoor portrait scenes as well. This filter works by only allowing polarized light into the camera, that means light traveling from one direction. This has several effects on your photo.

• Reflections – A circular polarizing filter can enhance or remove reflections from a scene, depending on what you desire. As you rotate the filter, you will see the reflection either increase or decrease.
• Saturation – This filter can also add more saturation to your photo, giving it more impact with the viewer. You can adjust how much by rotating the filter.
• Clouds – Related to the increase in saturation, is the enhancement of clouds. On days where there is a mixture of sky and cloud, this is especially effective.

#2 – Neutral Density Filter

Neutral density filters are ones that block the light in varying amounts depending on the strength of the filter. The strength ranges from the ND2 to ND1000, weakest to strongest respectively. These filters are mainly used for either portrait work, or landscape work with the stronger filters used in landscape photography.

The darkness these filters add is referred to as a stop, and a stop means one exposure value (1EV). That means an ND2, which is a 1 stop filter, darkens the photo by -EV1. The ND1000 filter is referred to as a 10-stop camera filter.

• Portrait filters – ND2, ND4, and ND8 filters can broadly be described as portrait filters. They are used with prime lenses when there is too much light for that lens to be used with a large aperture. Their other function, when using a strobe (flash), is to block enough light so you can use the flash at the camera’s regular sync speed (without the need for high-speed sync HSS).
• Landscape filters – While there are times you might want to use some of the weaker ND filters for landscape photography, typically you’ll be using an ND110 or ND1000 for landscape photography. This allows you to make dramatic long exposure photos during the day, ideal for moving water or clouds.
• Solar eclipse – Should you be lucky enough to witness a solar eclipse, you’ll want to use the 16-stop ND100000 filter (a special solar filter).

#3 – Graduated Neutral Density Filter

These filters are the domain of landscape photographers. Graduated Neutral Density filters come in two types, hard and soft. They’re used to make the sky darker, so it balances out the exposure of the image in relation to the foreground.

Purist photographers who like to create their photos from a single image, and avoid techniques like HDR or digital blending like to use these filters. Even those who like to blend their images will use them, as it makes post-processing easier later on.

If you’re looking to buy one you should look at the square variety, as this gives you the ability to adjust where the horizon line is. Let’s look at the types you could use.

• Hard – This means there is a sharp line between the dark and light areas of the filter. They are more difficult to use but create nice results when applied correctly.
• Soft – Soft graduated filters have a more graduated transition from dark to light. Easier to use, and better when the horizon line isn’t sharp if it contains buildings or trees.
• Strength – As with the regular ND filters these vary with strength. You can get ND2, ND4 and ND8 graduated filters.

Note – The quality of the ND filters will be better the more you spend. Cheaper varieties may introduce a color cast to your image and are therefore not entirely neutral. If you have the money to spend, the Lee filter system is highly recommended.

Read these dPS reviews for more on these filters:

• Comparison – HDR Versus Graduated Neutral Density Filters for Landscape Photography
• Review of the Vü Professional Filter System
• Review of the Wine Country Camera Filter Holder System
• How to Use Graduated Neutral Density Filters for Landscape Photography

#4 – Graduated Filter

Progressing on we now look at the Graduated Filter. These are used to enhance the color in the sky. They work just like the graduated ND filters but instead add color. This type of filter will often be used to make a sunset sky even more dramatic, by making the sky orange, or perhaps rose red.

Other options for graduated filters are adding sepia to the top half of your photo. Even more experimental is adding one color to the bottom of the image, and another color to the top by using two of these filters together. This is a great camera filter to be creative with, but you need to apply it to the right place.

Those wishing to try their hand at this type of photography with a filter should look at this excellent guide.

#5 – Infrared filter

Do you want to create a dreamscape from your photos, with foliage that looks like it’s from a snowstorm? Then you’ll need to learn how to make infrared photos.

One of the most accessible ways to do this is by using a filter. When you buy a filter like this it will appear black, that’s because the human eye can’t see the infrared spectrum of light. A popular filter for infrared photography is Hoya’s R72. Even with a filter, you’ll need a camera that will perform with this filter attached, and some cameras are better at this than others.

Most manufacturers will block infrared light from reaching the sensor to some extent, the stronger that block is the less effective this filter will be. Should you choose to use this kind of filter on a non-converted camera expect your exposure times to range from 30 seconds up to 4 minutes, depending on your ISO and aperture settings.

Read more: My First Time Shooting Infrared Photography

What camera filters do you use?

There are lots of methods you can add creativity to your photography, a good camera filter is one of those ways. In this article, you’ve seen five of the best filters available to add that little extra to your image.

Have you used any of these filters? Is there another filter that you use in your photography, that can add more creativity? Those who take black and white photos will no doubt point to the effects that red, orange and yellow filters can add to this genre. As always we’d love to see examples of your photos in the comments section, together with hearing about your experience using filters.

The post 5 Camera Filters That Can Enhance Your Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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June 26, 2018 at 02:23PM

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Watch a Guy Teleport Across America While Trying to Pose for a Picture

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In May 2018, stop-motion and video wizard Kevin Parry spent three weeks driving around the United States. He posed for carefully planned “pictures” at various locations and then created this impressive 2-minute video showing himself teleporting around the country.

“All I wanted was to pose for one good picture,” Parry says. The video, titled “Portland to Portland (Teleporting Across America),” is filled with creative illusions and seamless transitions.

Parry has previously created a number of mind-bending video illusions, including his viral forest mirror illusion last year.

(via Kevin Parry via Laughing Squid)

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June 26, 2018 at 02:13PM

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How I Improved as a Photographer

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Two years ago, I splurged some money and bought a camera because I’d always wanted to try to take pictures of the stars. The left photo above was the only decent picture out of 700 taken on my first clueless attempt. The right photo was taken about 2 weeks ago. Don’t let your dreams be dreams.

I can distinctly remember the first time a camera was put into my hands. It was the wedding of one of my oldest cousins, and I was 10 or 11 years old. A family friend was the photographer, and he must have noticed me walking around bored and clueless, because he took one of his SLRs, put it in my hand with a full roll of film, and told me to help him take pictures.

None of the photos turned out. I was a kid and I had no idea what I was doing, but 15 years later, that moment is still crystal clear in my memory. It spurred me into action, asking for digital cameras for my subsequent birthdays (my first was a 3.2MP point-and-shoot), saving up my lawnmowing money all summer to buy a 512MB Compact Flash memory card, and messing around with the old Pentax K1000 that had been collecting dust in my dad’s closet — whenever I could afford film and processing, that is.

Unfortunately, somewhere between working two jobs, trying to succeed in high school, beginning college, and spending 2 years abroad in Eastern Europe, I simply lacked the time, money, and know-how to pursue photography beyond the capabilities of my cell phone, and my interest in photography faded.

There was, however, always a shade of desire. I remember being jealous of friends who owned big, hefty, DSLRs. I was green with envy when my mom decided to buy my dad a Nikon D3200 for his birthday. I stole it often to take pictures and it didn’t take long before I knew more about it than he did. My time to own a DSLR came when I accepted an internship at a local art museum that needed me to act as an event photographer and videographer. I purchased a Nikon D3300 with a kit lens and a $20 tripod and immediately got to photographing everything in sight.

Those first couple of months, I tried to take pictures every day. I didn’t always succeed, but it taught me to be constantly looking for compelling subject matters. Growing up in the heart of Utah, landscape photography was a natural fit: there are canyons every 30 feet (it seems), 5 National Parks, a variety of National Monuments, and more to do than anyone could in a lifetime.

I spent much of my time hiking on the weekends and I had a close friend with whom I’d take road trips every year. Glacier or Banff, the Grand Canyon or California, wherever sounded most exciting. Landscape photography, as I often say, meant simply doing what I already did — but bringing back evidence.

From the get-go, I also had a strong desire to take pictures of the stars. Humans have always had this primordial fascination with the stars, and I’ve always felt that strongly. Many a summer night growing up was spent on my rooftop watching the sky shift from sunset to blue hour to suburban starscape. For that reason, the stars seemed a natural subject as well, and I can vividly remember my first attempt at capturing them.

My friend and I hiked a steep trail to a lake on the night of a full moon. It was nearly dark by the time we arrived at the destination, but the area was beautifully lit. I moseyed over to the far side of the lake, set up my tripod and camera and spent the better part of an hour troubleshooting. Simple photographic concepts — focus, aperture, exposure — became less intuitive at night. I guessed at settings, wrote them down, made slight adjustments, and tried again. 700 terrible photos and a few hours later, we made the long trek back down to our car, trail poorly lit by cell phone flashlight.

The whole night, the best photo I had managed to produce featured brightly illuminated cliffs and a few faint stars. My expectations for what I would be able to do were extremely high and I’d certainly fallen short, but at the end of the day, I was thrilled I could see stars at all. I went out the next night and the next night and the next night, always to different locations, getting more and more excited with each photograph that got closer to representing the vision I had for what my photography could be.

The follow-up to those feelings could only be described as an obsession. I was getting distracted at work because I was googling articles about night photography. I signed up for a dozen newsletters on various websites with tips and tricks. I began researching gear the second I realized that, well, an entry-level camera and a kit lens weren’t going to cut it. I thought I knew cameras because I understood the basic concepts of ISO, aperture, and exposure and (more-or-less) how they worked together in the daytime, but I purchased books that taught me to understand their effects and use them beyond simply to manipulate light.

I learned what a crop-sensor was and immediately ached for a full-frame camera, I began to study the construction of and limitations of lenses and I immediately began researching which lenses I needed to buy in order to increase the quality of my work. I read articles about low-light performance in various cameras, I read about sensor technology, I bought Photoshop and Lightroom and began to watch YouTube tutorials about Milky Way post-processing techniques. Star tracking and median stacking and focal blending were terms of which I had never heard, but with time, I began to understand and apply them.

Just as importantly, I learned how to compose an image. I bought a couple books that helped me understand the theory, but trial-and-error was the real teacher. As a trained Art Historian, I studied the likes of Ansel Adams, Eadweard Muybridge, and William Henry Jackson, even handling original prints of theirs, all the while trying to see through their eyes and understanding how to see the way that they saw.

Along those same lines, I studied the work of famous 19th-century romantic landscape painters like Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt, attempting to understand (and later replicate) what made their compositions compelling.

Miraculously, throughout this entire multi-year process, I began to see improvement. And as I saw improvement, my interest waxed instead of waned. That first year I shot upwards of 100 GB worth of photographic data. The next year, it more than tripled.

It’s important to realize in retrospect that improvement is often slow-going and always requires a lot of sacrifice and diligence. Nothing says sacrifice quite like taking an hour-long nap and then having to crawl out of a warm sleeping bag to go wander through the desert all by yourself (machete in hand, in case any wild animals want to tussle).

During the week of the new moon in June 2018, I spent 6 out of 7 days camping, on average driving 4 hours round trip to a camping spot dark enough to photograph the skies. I spent 4 of those nights sleeping in the driver’s seat of my car while the wind howled outside. I returned home with only a few worthwhile images to process (Good ol’ Ansel said it best: “12 significant photographs in one year is a good crop.”) Besides that, each of those mornings, I drove 1-3 hours back home to work an 8-9 hour shift at my day job.

I rarely get paid for my photography, but exhaustion and lack of monetary payoff aside, I am in love with what I do. I never imagined I’d be to the point that people would want me to write about my experiences, that Reddit posts of my photography would hit the front page (41k upvotes and counting), or that strangers and friends would be asking me for advice — I’m just a guy who loves the world I live in and whose eyes shimmer like a little kid’s every time I look up at the night sky.

I still have a lot to learn and a lot to improve upon. I look forward to the future, but those formative moments as an innocent and naive student of photography will always be some of my favorites—when every shutter click was an uneasy step forward and I was always anxious to learn something new. I hope that that early spirit never leaves me.

I think often of the 10- or 11-year-old version of myself snapping wedding photos and wish I could watch him excitedly click away, but I feel lucky to be able to experience that same excitement every time I see the world through my own lens or look up and try to soak up the beauty of the sky.

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About the author: Matthew Pockrus is a landscape photographer based in Utah and focusing on the American West. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Pockrus’ work on his website and Instagram.

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June 26, 2018 at 01:30PM

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Daydreamers: Street Photos of People with Closed Eyes

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As a street photographer, I like catching those quiet moments of solitude people have amidst the busy and hectic life of the metropolis. That’s how my Daydreamers series was born. While combing through my archives and Instagram posts, I noticed I had a lot of photos of people with their eyes shut.

They looked eerie. While those instances caught on camera were accidental — I wasn’t trying to get those kinds of shots on purpose — the fact that I kept them and made them public wasn’t. I liked those photos a lot. For all I know, those New Yorkers aren’t walking the streets daydreaming, but they could be.

Photography is a lie and this essay is a perfect example of that. I come from a fine art background so even as a street photographer, I’m not necessarily interested in showing things how they really are — and who’s to say anyway? I liked the idea of taking the streets of New York as a subject and make it something else, something mine, which isn’t that common in street photography.

I find those images fascinating because when I look at the subjects, I feel I can get inside their heads, I don’t want to imagine what they’re thinking, but I do feel a certain vibe that’s hard to put into words. I know how it feels to close your eyes in the middle of a busy subway car or a street.

When I go out and shoot the streets I never have anything specific in mind, I take pictures of whatever catches my eye and I never ask myself why this or that seems interesting, I never answer those questions, but it is fun to look back at what you shoot, especially in a wider perspective of 5 or 10 years, and see what it is that attracts your attention; subconsciously. It’s like reading your mind. That’s how this project began.

It’s one of those themes you can carry on photographing forever — I can see this photo essay extending into a much bigger body of work. Likewise, I like other people looking at my work and pointing out things I can’t see myself. That’s how my other project on loneliness was born — another photographer saw my New York Chronicles and said, “Oh, I see you photograph a lot of lonely people.”

I hadn’t realized that but followed that thread and made it into a photo essay. Most of the things I photograph are interesting to me on a subconscious level and it’s fun to read my own mind using my own photography.

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About the author: Luc Kordas is an independent photographer based in New York. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Kordas’ work on his website and Instagram.

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June 26, 2018 at 09:16AM