Market day people

More thoughts on small cameras and making pictures with them. First up, I prefer to start out with 3:2 aspect ratio and only to crop from that if required (usually for portrait orientation), rather than start with 4:3 and crop. This probably goes back to the dawn of time when I started making pictures on 35mm film. I suspect it's also associated with looking at more pictures made in that format than any other over the years.

Although I don't hold to the mantra that big cameras put people off, but that it's the way you point them at people that does that, a small camera makes me less self conscious about pointing it at people.

Of course when you know someone it's easy to point a camera at them. And they come to expect it!

Small cameras are light enough to carry around in your hand for long periods - which is good. Using the screen on the back makes for a different framing strategy, I find. For the two shots above I used the viewfinder and they are quite formally arranged. The rear screen makes my pictures looser.

Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. It is good for me in that I have always been uptight about framing shots. The fluid way of shooting at arm's length does me good even if the pictures don't always come off.

One point of note is that sunny days make the market tricky to photograph with the stalls being shaded and the street brightly lit. Another reason for me preferring rainy days for shooting around towns!

A really useful outcome of my trip to market town was finding one way to make pictures about parking that I like. Which means I might get to make some more and the 'project' might get off the ground. I just need to stay loose.

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