How to See a Great City 3 by brewgirlca

Photography • Food • posted on Sep 17, 2013

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Description

So do any of you have any clue as to why I say this is a way to see a great city? I will give you a hint: It is actually a tool that makes it easier to carry out what is for me a very difficult photography technique! The technique is called stay in one place and have the city come to you! This I find really difficult to pull off. You have to find yourself an interesting and relatively busy spot and you just stand or sit there with your camera and you shoot whatever and whoever comes into your view. Instead of going on a hunt for interesting things you sit and look for interesting things as they pass you by. This requires a lot of patience of the quiet kind - I do not have a lot of this kind of patience. But I have found a good way to get around the problem is to find a nice streetside cafe and then to order a decent size meal so that I will have to be there for a reasonably long period of time. Then I can make myself relax just a bit. I have also found that it is rather fun to photograph my meals, especially at nice places that put some effort into elegance of presentation. This is one of those places. It is called Stacks, a very famous breakfast place in Hayes Valley of San Francisco and I am about to dive into a breakfast of crab crepes, hash browns, and dark coffee. Yum, it was awesome! When you are waiting you have the chance to set up your lighting just right and then you can sit there with the camera and just fire away when something interesting comes across your field of view. You can also be sneaky by pretending to be looking at images in your LCD while you are actually photographing people! I was rewarded with the very first image in this series, the hop on hop off bus while sitting at this very spot. I could see the buses coming way down the street and so I just aimed my camera where I knew they would stop and waited for them to drive into the frame. It is actually an excellent technique.

Comments (19)

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magnus073

10:42PM | Tue, 17 September 2013

Roxie, I think this is an absolutely wonderful capture and the food looks marvelous

ronmolina

11:24PM | Tue, 17 September 2013

Oh yah!

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drifterlee

12:15AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

Looks yummy!

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RodS

1:08AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

Aw, damn......... Here it is, almost 1:00 AM, I'm getting ready to get in bed and watch something on my laptop.... And now I'm HUNGRY! Thanks for that, Roxy! :-D Jeeze, what a delicious photo! I've used that 'sneaky' technique a few times myself - aiming the camera at a certain spot, and waiting for something - or someone - to wander into the target area. Works well, especially when your subjects think that because the camera is on your lap, or on the table, (with the food) they don't have to feel self-conscious. You did get some delightful shots judging by your previous posts. bguuuurrrrrr...nit,nit,nit...... Did you hear that? It's my stomach growling....... :-P

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9002434

1:31AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

A very welldone casual scene!! Bravo. 5+

whaleman

1:34AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

I could see immediately what you had in mind by looking at the top left of your photo...you found a place to sit and watch the city moving past you! Might be because I was doing the same thing at an interesting location last week myself.

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prutzworks

1:52AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

digital Lomography lol very nice shot ntw

brewgirlca

1:39PM | Wed, 18 September 2013

Exactly! Good catch.

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photosynthesis

1:53AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

Nice prototypical diner setup, complete with traditional diner glasses, plates, condiments, etc. Though I like fine dining as much as anyone, I also have a great fondness for classic diner food & ambiance, especially for breakfast. Your photographic technique of letting the city come to you is a good one & reminds me of a sci-fi book I read decades ago called "Mind Swap" by Robert Sheckley. It involved a character who swapped bodies with an alien (he thought temporarily) & then found out the alien had stolen it. His problem was that the alien could have been anywhere in the universe & he didn't have a clue where to start looking. So he hires a detective, who, as it turns out, never leaves his office. The detective invokes the "theory of searches", which states that if two beings are both moving, they might never find each other, so your best strategy is to stay put & wait for your prey to come to you...

alanwilliams

2:08AM | Wed, 18 September 2013

i admire you technique and the results it produces. On the geeky side, what do you think of the Fuji, i've just got the x100s and i'm blown away by its versatility, can't wait to try it out in Madrid next week.

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