Pic(k) of the week 38: PARIS - City of love

Paris is often referred to as the birthplace of STREET PHOTOGRAPHY; likely due to the fact that Henri Cartier-Bresson, lived a large part of his life in the "City of Love". Bresson, often referred to as one the first Street Photographers, is known for his "Decisive Moment"; an idea that inspired several generations of photographers, making candid photographs in public places at very specific moments. Today we generally refer to it as Street Photography.

The image below of two teenagers showing signs of affection at "Les Deux Plateaux" (inner courtyard of the Palais Royal), also referred to as the Colonnes de Buren, is what I personally call a typical street photograph. I particularly like the gentleman on the left, walking into the scene; is it the father of one of the couple?

In order to protect the "Decisive Moment" it is essential that the person(s) being photographed does not notice the photographer making the image. A few tricks I often use are pretending to fiddle with the camera settings while shooting or clicking the shutter through the Fujifilm Wifi Remote App on a Smartphone. The tilt screen works also great for candid street photography.

For Street Photography, I personally use the Fujifilm X-series cameras in Electronic shutter mode, so they are 100% silent and mostly prefer Black and White images, although there is sometimes also a place for color images, example here.

Beside my trusty X-T1, I recently also purchased a Fujifilm X-T10 camera, to be mainly used of Street Photography. Its slightly smaller size and lighter weight, together with the 27mm pancake or 16mm lens, makes it a perfect match!

Love is in the air - Palais Royal, Paris

Image details
Fujifilm X-T10 with the 16mm F1.4 R WR lens
ISO 200, f 5.6, 1/400s
RAW development in Lightroom CC
Black and White conversion in Lightroom

More of my PARIS street photography can be found here.

Remember: "Your first 10.000 images are your worst" - Henri Cartier-Bresson




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