Allison’s Initial Letter

Whilst walking and listening to the latest show, I thought of an idea for an episode: shooting in an urban environment. I’m not sure there’s a LOT of meat on them bones, but I thought about different things you can do in this realm.

We were in Fresno seeing [family]. I took this photo outside of our hotel.

It’s what my eye was drawn to and appreciated. But this is what the area actually looked like.

The point is that I often am focusing my joy of where I live on the beauty and my brain just throws away the ugly parts. Power poles just aren’t in my vision even though they may block the sunset. 

The two photos I sent [previously] show how the different point of view can entirely change what one sees.

But it’s not always about trying to hide the ugly. I love to take a photo of a pretty fallen leaf on the sidewalk from down at the ground so that in the bokeh you can make out an old rusted out truck and a bunch of power lines.

I like to capture “life finds a way” subject. A rose snaking out from between fence posts, or a crack in the sidewalk with a tiny flower.

During our conversation Allison promised to share a link of a video her husband Steve took of a total solar eclipse using the sounds of the people experiencing the same eclipse as the soundtrack: youtube.com/…

After we recorded Allison shared this cool map of her walking route, showing a hero photo and a photo count of the various places she passes daily:

Some Additional Ideas and Tips from Bart

I’m not an urban person, I grew up in rural Ireland, and I feel most a home surrounded by nature, so I struggle with urban photography, though I am starting to get better at it.

Here are some things that work for me:

• Keep an eye out at the smallest scales — lots of interesting shots hide in the small details!
  • Like Allison, I’m fascinated by how nature finds a way, and happens most at small scales in thinks like walls and pavements
  • Proud citizens decorate urban public spaces at all scales, not just big monuments!
  • Proud residents decorate their homes in fun ways, especially at Halloween and over the winter holiday weeks.
• You can also get interesting results shooting a big scene wide but with something of interest very close to show a place at multiple scales at once
• When shooting buildings, try really hard to keep the camera face-on and perfectly horizontal and level to minimise perspective distortions, especially when shooting wide
  • If you can’t get your parallels perfectly parallel in-camera, spend some time with those three perspective sliders in post!
• Or … do the exactly opposite, and intentionally shoot wide and off-square to amplify the keystone effect!
• Experiment with unusual points of view
  • The iPhone’s superpower is how easy it is to shoot low, the world looks really different from down there!
  • I LOVE combining shooting small things with getting really close, wide, and low
• Contrasts can make for really cool shots
  • Big & small
  • Clashing colours
  • Textures, e.g. rough & smooth
• Sometimes the cacophony of colours can distract more than it helps, so remember you always have the option to convert to monochrome!
  • It’s no coincidence a lot of street photography is black & white!

I also see others do greet things in urban settings that I’m trying to get a handle on, but so far, without much success:

• People! Were a fascinating bunch us humans, and there tend to be a lot of us in urban areas, but I’m just bad at photographing us, you might have more success 🙂
• Look out for interesting shapes
  • Takes an ability to mentally subtract most of the scene, detail, and colour that I’ve just not mastered
  • Colour often distracts here, so I see lots of stunning monochromes that make great use of shapes.