Shooter Files by f.d. walker

Street Photography Tips, Interaction, Travel, Guides

Street Shot Sundays
Photo of the Week:
“Flashing in the Rain”

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Street Shot Sundays Story & Stats

Story:

This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey. Last Christmas, I gifted myself a fujifilm flash and cord for some off-camera flash street photography. I have photographer friends that are into flash religiously and I’d been wanting to try it out more. Natural light will always be my main focus, but flash is fun, adds an interesting dynamic and is great when the light out isn’t so great.

When I returned to Istanbul early this year, the city was covered in snow. After spending most of the year under Istanbul’s hot sun, the cold temperature and darkness were a complete change for photography. So it was the perfect chance to start using my new flash.

One evening as I was shooting around Taksim Square, the  snow/slush/rain started coming down. While my camera isn’t weather proof, I tried to carefully get some flash shots in. I saw this man walking with a clear umbrella and an interesting look with his hand around his neck, so I walked over to get the shot. I also wanted him illuminated underneath the umbrella for both effect and so there wouldn’t be a flash reflection on the plastic umbrella. So I quickly lowered the flash underneath and took the shoot just as he was in front of me. 

While flash isn’t very noticeable during the day, it is once the sun goes down. So this shot actually sparked an interesting conversation. After finding out he was from France, moved to Istanbul, and some other quick life facts, the slush turned to heavy rain and it was time for me to call it a night so I’d have my camera working another day.

Stats:

  • Camera: Fujifilm Xpro1
  • Lens: Fujinon XF 18mm 
  • Focal Length: 18mm (27mm full frame equivalent)
  • Aperture: f/16
  • Shutter Speed: 1/60
  • ISO: 400
  • Flash: Fujifilm EF-X20flash street beginning-2

Master Profiles: William Klein

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* “Master Profiles” is a series profiling all the great photographers of uncontrolled life. Unlike the rest of the blog, I’m doing these in a straight profile format to make it easy for quick access to facts, quotes and knowledge on all the masters. I’ll also group them together here every time I add a new one.

Profile:

William Klein (1928-Present)

American photographer known for creating his own influential style that ignored all the rules.

[Read more…]

City Street Guides by f.d. walker:
A Street Photography Guide to
Budapest, Hungary

Budapest-Guide-Cover

*A series of guides on shooting Street Photography in cities around the world. Find the best spots to shoot, things to capture, safety concerns, street tips, and more for cities around the world.  I have personally researched, explored and shot Street Photography in every city that I create a guide for. So you can be ready to capture the streets as soon as you step outside with your camera!

Budapest

[Read more…]

Street Stories: Arrested for Street Photography in Morocco

Street-Photography-Arrested-Morocco

A little while back I decided to include a few posts/stories about some of the negative experiences that have come about from shooting street photography during my 100 cities project. I want this blog to be open, honest, and hopefully interesting, so that should include the times that don’t go perfectly too. In the first post, I wrote about a physical confrontation over street photography that I had in Istanbul. While they’re very rare, confrontations can occur in street photography, but for this post I wanted to cover something that happened to me that I never would have expected.

Chefchaouen Shooter Files-2
Chefchaouen, Morocco

During my visit to Chefchaouen, Morocco, I was actually arrested for street photography. But it wasn’t as simple as that. The story behind why and how is the most surprising part, and now that I’m free, it’s also the most entertaining part, for me…

[Read more…]

Street Shot Sundays
Photo of the Week:
“Medina Light”

61 Photos-54

Street Shot Sundays Story & Stats

Story:

This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken in the medina near Bab Rcif in Fes, Morocco. In a country full of elaborate medinas, nothing compares to the one in Fes. It’s more like a whole city and you could easily spend days walking around and getting lost in the maze. The medina here is as much for the locals living within its walls as the tourists visiting.

I had just started the day and entered the medina through the Bab Recif gate. Much of the medina is so narrow and packed that the sunlight is blocked out, but along this busy alley, there were some sun rays shining in beautifully. I noticed a large mirror that reflected against an area where one of those beams of light hit. So I waited to see if I could catch someone against it at the right time.

I saw this woman dressed in blue with a yellow bag coming so I got in the right position for the frame to include both her and her reflection, with the alley in between. Luckily, the sunlight hit the lens just right so it added those two sunbeams in the shot too.

Stats:

  • Camera: Fujifilm Xpro1
  • Lens: Fujinon XF 18mm 
  • Focal Length: 18mm (27mm full frame equivalent)
  • Aperture: f/16
  • Shutter Speed: 1/500
  • ISO: 800

61 Photos-54

33 Street Photography Photos from 2 Days in Casablanca, Morocco

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I finished off my visit to Morocco flying out of Casablanca. While Casablanca is the biggest city in Morocco, not many stay longer than it takes to fly in and out. Most visitors come here for all the other cities in Morocco, but you don’t hear anybody recommend visiting Casablanca. Since it is a large, well-known city, I wanted to see how deserving this was so I decided to leave a couple of days to explore the city before I left Morocco.

While it was easy to see why it’s not high on the list for travelers to Morocco, I did find it worth exploring for street photographers. At first impression, it’s a somewhat ugly, charmless sprawl of an urban city. Deteriorating and dirty without many attractions. There isn’t much info online so I really had to discover the city on my own, by foot. I found underneath this uninspiring exterior, there was plenty of life and interest to capture. I enjoyed the urban city side of Morocco and while it’s not pretty, there’s still some character there for street photography. 

I only had 2 days here so it didn’t give me much opportunity to capture as many photos as usual, but I still wanted to keep with 33 photos series theme, anyway. So here’s 33 street photography photos from 2 days in Casablanca, Morocco…

[Read more…]

7 First Impressions of Casablanca, Morocco
(From a Street Photography Perspective)

Casablanca-Shooter-Files-5

While Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco, it doesn’t get much love. People might fly in and out of the city, but it’s hard to find anyone recommending staying here longer than that. I wanted to find out if there was a good reason for this so I made sure to spend a few days here before flying out at the end of my visit to Morocco. 

Casablanca Shooter Files-1

The truth is, after exploring the city, I can understand why people don’t love it compared to Morocco’s other attractions, but for street photography, I found many reasons that made me happy I gave it a chance. 

Casablanca Shooter Files-11

So here are my first impressions of Casablanca, from my personal Street Photographer perspective…

[Read more…]

Behind the Book w/ Kaushal Parikh:
Fragments of a Spinning Rock

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Kaushal Parikh is a street, travel and documentary photographer from Mumbai, India. In 2011 he founded the Indian street photography collective, That’s Life, and has become one of the most well-known names in contemporary street photography in India.

Kaushal recently took almost a decade’s work across India to create his first book, titled Fragments of a Spinning Rock. Fragments is not your typical photo book, though, as Kaushal created a full, artistic and personal experience for viewers to enjoy. Poetry is used throughout the book to help take you along the photographic journey and India’s streets and natural life are blended with his own personal life. This creative approach really helps showcase Kaushal’s beautiful black and white images of gritty and striking contrast.

From the book’s layout to how it juxtaposes the streets and nature, while including a strong touch of Kaushal’s personal relationship with his family and son, everything about Fragments of a Spinning Rock is unique. Since Fragments was released at the end of March, it has only been met with high praise and glowing reviews. So in honor of his new book, I got together with Kaushal to talk about Fragments in a new series here at Shooter Files, Behind the Book. 

[Read more…]

Street Shot Sundays
Photo of the Week:
“Sidewalk Shadow”

Casablanca Shooter Files-4-2

Street Shot Sundays Story & Stats

Story:

This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken in Casablanca, Morocco. I was exploring Casablanca’s medina, which is a much more urban medina than other Moroccan cities. There’s an interesting mix of medina life and big city life here and it was one of my favorite spots in the city for street photography. 

It was later in the day, about an hour before sunset, so the light was great and the streets were full of children playing after school. Outlined in shadow, I noticed a mattress and colorful textiles stood up on the sidewalk where people’s shadows hit perfectly as they walked by.

I was waiting to see if I could capture anything interesting when this little boy walked up and leaned against the mattress. At the same time, I noticed another little boy the same size walking towards him. So I waited to capture his shadow facing the opposite direction on the textiles. Since the sun was low, I was able to catch his shadow just as he walked out of the photo and create a slight illusion of the two boys on the sidewalk.  

Stats:

  • Camera: Fujifilm Xpro1
  • Lens: Fujinon XF 18mm 
  • Focal Length: 18mm (27mm full frame equivalent)
  • Aperture: f/11
  • Shutter Speed: 1/500
  • ISO: 400

Casablanca Shooter Files-4-2

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-f.d. walker

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