Failure in the rain

For some time I've been chasing pigeons with my camera, trying to capture an image of a bird with the street in the background making a picture. It relies a lot on luck, which so far has been mostly bad. While I may not be a stickler for sharpness I've not even got close despite trying various autofocus modes and manually prefocusing. While not a street scene the shot on the right is my best effort so far.

In a fit of inspiration I tried the same tactic on dogs being walked, and the ever-unreliable screen on the camera suggested it was a better option. The big screen on the confuser told another story. Blurry dogs. They look okay at minuscule size but a print would be disappointing. The idea is good. The execution flawed.

All was not lost. Rain makes for good street photography in my experience. People are too concerned with keeping dry to worry about a nutter with a camera. They're not the best pictures in the world but they have bits working in their favour.

What I like about this first shot are the colours and the way all the faces are hidden save for that of the sleeping child - which isn't immediately obvious because it merges into the pink bag.

I don't know what I like about the second shot. Maybe the limited palette and the graphic nature of the umbrella.

The graffiti certainly lifts the third shot. A bare wall would not have been anywhere near as visually interesting, not even given my taste for acres of negative space.

The final picture comes closer to succeeding in a sort of linear composition with figures (including the dummies) spread across the frame. A far more painterly approach to creating a picture. Oh well. Lessons learned I think.

---