Tag: Photography

Top 10 Photos of 2024

I’ve enjoyed a particularly productive photographic year during which I’ve (mostly) acclimated to the Leica Q2 and used it to shoot almost exclusively in black and white, and usually in the city of Toronto.

Narrowing everything down to 10 images was challenging given that I have gone out weekly throughout 2024 to make images and kept thousands of them. The images in this series hold up on their own while, also, developing a narrative when read beside one another.

When was this photograph taken? 2024 or 1964?

The use of black and white has the effect of confusing the viewer of the image’s temporality. This is accentuated by the sign in the photograph being from another generation. Adding power to the image are the two figures who are wandering through the early January snow, with the young woman looking down and over to the city’s garbage, and the little boy looking up past the trash to the graffiti on the wall. This speaks to the hopes and ambitions of youth and the practicality of maturity, while they are both literally passing by the abandoned garbage of the day.

This was one of the first images that I made of 2024 and it remained amongst my favourites throughout the year.

What is this woman so focused upon? How much has she seen during her lifetime and how shadowy are those memories?

Throughout the year I’ve spent time seeking out images that rely on reflections to strengthen the environment around the main subject(s) of photographs. The woman’s white hat and mask made her stand out through the windows, and then play nicely with the shadowy figures reflected in the glass. It’s this juxtaposition that brings the image to life in my eyes.

What does it mean to be an inhabitant of a major city?

This photograph shows the city from a different perspective than is typical of Toronto street photographers who are making images in the core. Still, the image captures ever present aspects of city life: mass transit, rapid development, and the isolation and anonymity of the residents as they move through their day.

I’ve been coming to this particular subway stop to make this image for 5 years. After years of visiting the same location I finally got the light, subject, and subway where I wanted them at the same time.

What did Toronto look like during its process of being built up in the contemporary era?

We are in a time of building but there are relatively few organic photographs that are deliberately capturing this development. Like images of old this photograph speaks to the relationship of people and the city that is growing (or metastasizing) around them.

Toronto is rapidly building density in its core. I’ve worked throughout the year to incorporate construction into my street images while, also, seeking elevated heights to capture the city’s transformation. The lines across the image draw the eye upwards and the construction worker on the railing serves to underscore the size of the development.

Well hello, madame – what gave you your sense of style?

The Saint Patrick’s Day parade is a major event in Toronto. I’ve been photographing it for years and regularly march in it to make images of the crowds. I like how the woman in this photograph is almost posing in her winter jacket — it gives her a sense of elegance and self-importance — while, above her, the sign suggests that she is happy and ranked #1. But it’s the man who is looking on at the right-hand side of the frame adds a degree of electricity to the image with his dourness in contrast to the woman’s more positive energy.

Someday in the future will we be amazed at the low cost of a veal sandwich or beverage?

This is one of those images that works, in part, because the ordering of the image isn’t quite right: the subject is looking away from the rest of the signs, which encourages the reader of the image to go from left to right which isn’t typical in Western culture. I also like his expression and how the contrast in the image draws the eye through the items for sale at the festival.

What’s happening here? What do you feel when you’re so close to this slightly obscured woman and her side-eye staring companion?

Like many street photographers, I try to make use of graffiti and other temporary art in the city when making images. I like how this image somewhat conceals the look that the older woman is giving the viewer, at the same time as she is getting a side eye from her companion. The contrast through the image also serves to create an effect foreground, middle, and background.

Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, Toronto, 2024

So this is summer! Children playing in the mist while the city towers above them, and a bird flees the city towards some less inhabited region.

This image captures the idealized life of being in the city, where people come out from their ever-growing towers to relax and play together. It is also one that hides the actual subjects, themselves, and in so doing conceals the participants in this space. Is this a playground of the elite’s children or a communal space used by all inhabitants of the city? For those who live here the answer is apparent but otherwise a degree of mystery may remain concerning the socio-economics of the subjects.

Swings let us throw our hair back and play with our suspended bodies while soaring above the ground; we enjoy a kind of freedom that is in opposition to our normal land based experiences.

Every year I go to the CNE’s Exhibition and get a little more comfortable looking for scenes to make images. This year I spent a bunch of time at this ride, and I think that this image captures the carefree playfulness that’s associated with the summer fair.

What is it like to be alone in the city and reflect on what once was, and what could become?

Like the first image in the set, this photograph conveys a sense of solitude in Canada’s largest city while also hearkening to a time past. Because this image is monochromatic it establishes a degree of ambiguity as to when the image was made and thus provides a sense of balance to the collection of images.

All of my images are located by city cross-streets and are are lightly processed using Apple Photos. I post new images daily to Glass.

Artist’s Statement

Christopher Parsons an amateur Toronto-based documentary and street photographer, and has been making images for over a decade. His monochromatic photographs focus on little moments that happen on the streets and which record the ebb and flow of urban life over the course of years and decades.

His work often deliberately plays with the temporality of built environments and photographs themselves, and regularly uses temporal ambiguity to entice viewers into questioning what happened prior to, and following, the pressing of the shutter button.

Tags Leica Q2, Monochrome Photography, Photography, Street Photography

Links Photography

Best Photography-Related Stuff of 2024

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date December 24, 2024

It’s the time of year for people’s best-of roundups. Like last year I wanted to recognize stuff that meant a lot to my photography through 2024. And, this year, I’ve also added a short list of hopes for stuff in 2025!

Photography Stuff I Used

Best Technology of 2024

The big change this year? I pretty well completely pivoted to my Leica Q2 and with only rare exceptions did I use the Ricoh GR IIIx or my iPhone 14 Pro. When I bought the Q2 it was, in part, to be able to capture images at night where there was little light. I’ve made images under these conditions that I’m happy with and I’ve come to learn how to better use the 28mm focal range. At this point I’ve created well over ten thousand frames over the year.¹

I upgraded to the 11” iPad Pro (2024) and definitely appreciate how light the device is, and how vibrant the screen is. I continue to use an iPad Mini for most of my actual reading but write a lot of blog posts on the iPad Pro and do all my photo editing on it.

When I take my photowalks I’m always listening to a podcast or music on my AirPod Pros. However I’ve long had an issue with finding tips that best fit my ears; the ones in the box always slip out. I recently learned about, and bought, the SpinFit CP1025 (S/SS) and they’ve been game changing. I get a perfect fit and the AirPods stay in my ears. Highly recommend them!

Best Services I Paid For

I continue to post images to Glass each day. I’m still disappointed with their AI search, and especially disappointed that landscape viewing on the iPad has now been broken for about a year.² Still, it’s a terrific community and a good place to post images regularly.

Apple One is key to my data management strategy. I’m still under the 2TB that is provided as part of the subscription though, with my current data use, I suspect that in 3-5 years I’ll need to expand that 2TB storage limit.

Lastly, while I’ve watched less photography YouTube I continue to appreciate YouTube Premium. It’s still about the most regularly used subscription service that I use on a regular basis.

Best Apps

Have I changed the apps that I rely on regularly since 2023?

Nope.

And so my best apps of 2024 include:

Glass: I use to share my images on a daily basis.
Geotags Photos Pro and Geotags Photo Tagger: I use to add geotags to my images.
Reeder Classic: To follow various photography blogs.
Apple Podcasts app: I use this to listen to photography podcasts while on my weekly photowalks.
Apple News: To read photography magazines and websites that otherwise would be paywalled.
Apple Photos: Used to edit and store all my images. I don’t love the iOS version of the application but it is what it is.

Stuff I Made

Writing

Sharing Photographs, and Photography, with Others and Growing as a Photographer: Despite being pretty used to being in the public eye as a result of my day job it’s different to expose myself when sharing the images that I make. Those images, if read carefully, reveal some elements of myself that I showcase less often, and this is made even revelatory when producing and sharing physical items to people I respect or submitting digital images to competitions. Just talking about that experience was liberating and reaffirmed that I am, slowly, growing as a photographer.
Accidentally Discovered Street Photos: Imagine my surprise when, after opening my used copy of Conversations: With Contemporary Photographers a strip of exposed Kodak 100TX film fell out! I used a free app to enlarge some of the images and while my efforts weren’t spectacular it did result in seeing — and sharing — some images from an earlier time.
10 Tips for Starting to Photograph on the Street: I regularly read and view content that is meant to help new photographers get comfortable on the streets. Much of that content is good but is directed towards a certain kind of concern, and way of behaving, on the streets (e.g., Zone focus! Shoot from the hip! Be invisible!). I think that my 10 tips are for people like me who are interested in making street photos but are shy about even being seeing with a camera. Really, this is a blog written for myself which, if I’d read it 10 years ago, would have given me a clearer sense of what I could do to develop my confidence and skills.
Nuit Blanche, 2024: I’ve been attending Nuit Blanche in Toronto, an annual art festival that runs for a single day from sundown to sunup, for many years. I always make photographs during it but, at the same time, have been challenged by using a smaller APS-C sensor camera. I was both pleased in the art that I experienced this year as well as the ability of the Leica Q2 to capture images more like how I wanted them due to its lens and sensor size.

Stuff I Read

Best Photography Books and Magazines

Metropolis: I’ve followed Alan’s work for years and appreciate how stark his imagery is and his absolute attention to form. His images carefully consider what is absolutely needed to communicate his vision and no more.
Conversations: With Contemporary Photographers: This was probably the most important book about photography that I read this year. I’m, personally, interested in thinking more deeply about the ontology of photography and what it is and is not. The photographers interviewed in the book provided a range of interpretations of what photography is, and means, for each of them, and I benefitted tremendously from their thoughts on the medium as one which controls time and, also, the role of time in their own creative activities.
Framelines: The team behind Framelines improve the magazine with every issue. From enhancements to the printing, imagery, interviews and just shipping, this is an instant purchase each time they come out with new issues. I particularly appreciate how they celebrate new and emerging photographers from around the world and platform those who, otherwise, I’d be entirely unaware of.
André Kertész: Sixty Years of Photography: This book is a gift to photographers and the image-viewing public more broadly. Published back in 1978 it catalogues Kertéz’s photographic history. It is when we look at images like this that it is apparent how much you can do with black and white images that are focused on the forms across a frame, and also how having decades of images enable a playfulness between pages so that works from different decades can speak to one another and create a perception of continuity across time and space. If you are committed to street images, black and white images, or just seeing how history unfolded over sixty years, then this book is a must see.
The Pleasure of Seeing: Conversations with Joel Meyerowitz on sixty years in the life of photography: Joel is, of course, a (still living) legend and has a number of different monographs under his name. This book is a little different because it explores his thought process across the different phases or eras of his photography. Now, if you’ve actively listened to his talks, interviews, podcasts, and so forth over the past decades many of the messages he communicates will be familiar. But to have them all in one place, along with his images that underscore his creative vision, is a real gift to photographers.

Stuff I Watched

Best Movies

Lee: This was an engrossing and highly cinematic movie. I liked how it conveyed the experiences that female photographers and journalists experienced during the time period and, also, communicated the toughness of Lee Miller and the harmful effects of being a war photographer more generally.
Harry Benson: Shoot First: I thought this was a terrific documentary of Benson who has made a living capturing images of celebrities. The images are profound but, also, you walk away with a sense that he lacks much empathy for his subjects. The inclusion of those who love his work, and those who hate it, helps to communicate what a controversial figure Benson has been throughout his life and career.

Best YouTube Channels

Paulie B: Almost certainly one of the most important American street photography channels, Paulie B has done a masterful job interviewing a range of photographers across the United States to understand what drives and inspires them. His episodes showcase photographers who may not be widely known, unpacks the creative processes of those he interviews, and also lets other street photographers really see how others work the streets. We’ve all heard about how the greats of the 1960s and 1970s worked; Paulie B is showing us how our American contemporaries move, think, and behave.
James Popsys: James is a quiet and almost introspective photographer, which are not necessarily the traits that lend themselves well to YouTube. However, his thoughtful meditations on how and why he makes images, combined with the sheer beauty of his work, results in each video containing a gem that is worth treasuring.
Photographic Eye: Some channels on YouTube focus on gear or technical methods of getting certain kinds of images. The Photographic Eye is not that. Instead, Alex Kilbee explains the intellectual processes of photography and speaks as a kind mentor or peer who is, also, working through his photography. I particularly like how he shares some of his own images so that viewers can appreciate the variety and intentionality behind image making.
The Art of Photography: Ted Forbes has been running his channel for over sixteen years at this point and made videos on just about everything that you’d ever want to know about. I find his historical episodes that break down, and showcase, the great photographers as essential to my own photographic education. And his episodes that showcase viewers’ own projects have led me to finding a range of photographers and purchasing work from them.³

Stuff I Subscribed To

Best Podcasts

The Photowalk: I’ve been a supporter of the Photowalk for several years and it’s a regular joy and pleasure to hear Neale and his guests talk about the broader experiences of making images. The discussions rarely touch on gear and, instead, are centred around the ‘why’ of image making. Whenever I’m out on a weekly photo walk, I’m listening to Neale and recommend that you do the same.
Frames Photography Podcast: Frames features photographers from across the different photographic genres. Many of the discussions are insightful for understanding what is behind different photographers’ creative processes, what motivates their projects, and how they work to express themselves to the broader world.
Street Photography Magazine: Featuring street photographers from around the world, this podcast exposes how and why different people got into the genre, what they aim to present through their work, and the rationales underlying how they make their images. Many of the photographers who are interviewed talk about their recent, or ongoing, projects which serves to underscore the different ways in which projects are conceptualized and brought into the world.
The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography: Operating since 2006, The Candid Frame features photographers from all walks of life discussing the how and why of their image making. This is particularly useful, for me, in learning about photographers working in genres entirely different from street photography and learning how their thought processes can apply to my own photographic life.
Street Life Podcast: This is one of the most recent additions to my list of podcasts and I’ve been enjoying every episode this year. It typically features photographers working in and around Australia and, aside from Houman Katoozi, I’m largely unfamiliar with folks working on that continent. The podcast often has a sense of friends talking amongst themselves about street photography and you’re just overhearing them as they joke with one another, talk about the Australian street photography community, and the challenges they’re facing in their own photographic activities.

Best Blogs/RSS Feeds

GR Official: As an owner of a few Ricoh GRs I’m always curious about how others handle and experience the camera. This blog features a range of authors, with a diversity of photographic backgrounds and personal experiences, which means that each blog is a bit of a surprise: is this going to be a more reflective piece, a showcase of just a few images, thoughts on a piece of equipment, or…?
Little Big Traveling Camera: I am always envious of how focused this photoblog is, how thoughtful the author is, and how well put together the images are. LBTC is, to my eye, the definition of what an excellent personal photoblog can be.
Mobiography: I don’t take a large number of mobile phone photographs but I appreciate learning how such images can be made. If nothing else, it showcases just how can be done with phones of today (as well as those of a decade or more ago) in the hands of competent photographers.
The Phoblographer: A regular publication that both showcases contemporary work while also engaging in some opinion and discussion about trends or issues in the photographic world.
Ming Thein: I owe a lot of what I (think I) understand about photography to Ming’s blog. He shuttered it several years ago but has kept it alive / in archival mode. I hope that it never goes away given how helpful and insightful his writing is for new and more experienced photographers alike.
Skinny Latte’s Creative Brain: I loved the photoessays that were published that exhibited gorgeous photography along with explanations and narratives to surround the images themselves. Sadly the photoblog has been left behind but the images and stories remain worth revisiting periodically.

Hopes for the future

Apple Photos: I just want it to reach parity with its Mac counterpart. We know that Apple has purchased Pixelmator and I’m hopeful that some of that DNA makes its way over to Photos.
iPhone Camera app: I’ll be honest, the new iPhones’ ability to better control and develop custom JPG settings along with the adoption of JPG XL are very exciting and make me look forward to whenever I upgrade from my iPhone 14 Pro. However, I really wish that Apple would bring additional exposure metering to the iPhone and, in particular, highlight metering for my black and white images. While there are ways to get around this on the iPhone it’d be nice if it was something they could do by default.
WordPress: I’ve been using WordPress for over 18 years at this point and it just seems to get more and more bloated. There are basic things that just don’t seem to be well developed, such as media management or the presentation of images, while a huge amount of effort has been put into turning WordPress into an enterprise CMS. I get that the company’s business is derived from its enterprise work but it’d be nice if basic features were also included in the priority product lists.
Leica Q2 Thumb Grip: In a late end-of-year purchase, I’ve ordered the ‘official’ Q2 thumb grip to further improve on the ergonomics of the Q2. Here’s hoping that I end up happy with it!

Though, admittedly, I’ve kept far fewer after doing my regular culling. ↩︎
Yes, I’ve contacted support. No, I never heard anything back. ↩︎
In the interests of disclosure I was featured in one of the mailbag episodes for my Postcards project. ↩︎

Tags Apple, Blogging, Geolocation, Glass, iPad Pro, Leica Q2, Movies, Photography, Podcasts, RSS, Wordpress, Youtube

Photo Essay Photography

Nuit Blanche, 2024

Since 2006 Toronto has hosted Nuit Blanche, where selected artists are invited to set up art installations from sundown at 7pm until sunrise at 7am the following day. For the past decade or so I’ve tried to get out and enjoy the exhibits. I usually try to walking from 1am until 7am when the installations are taken down.

This year many of the installations took place around Toronto’s downtown waterfront. This had the effect of clustering people in a common part of the city and enhancing the sense of togetherness associated with the art exhibits; in past years I often felt like I alone was still out at 7am but not this year!

Bay & Queens Quay, Toronto, 2024

Each year there are food stall and trucks, and this year was no exception. Even at 1 in the morning there were crowds who were looking to have a quick bite to carry them through the evening. I’d just arrived and had yet to feel the bite of hunger or thirst.

Lower Sherbourne & Queens Quay, Toronto, 2024

One of the exhibits this year included a series of skeletal shacks. They stood above us and we looked at what may happen when civilization degrades and this is what we remain left with.

Great Lakes Waterfront & Queen Quay, Toronto, 2024

Of course walking around this late at night meant there were often strong contrasts between shadow and light. I’ve visited this area of Toronto regularly over the past decade and captured people huddled in the same spot, but never with such dynamic contrast between the lit structure and the rest of the environment. I liked how the subjects were huddled away from the darkness that was just beyond the lit structure. Isn’t this the nature of humans: huddling in the light while the darkness is kept at bay?.

Dockside & Knapp, Toronto, 2024

Each year there are some exhibits that are at least slightly interactive. Every person who attended a particular film screening was first asked to pick up a custom hanger and think about it during the performance. It wasn’t self-apparent how this hanger necessarily mapped to film.

Queens Quay & Freeland, Toronto, 2024

This was the only colour image I made through the night. The exhibit projected videos of people’s homes on a condo wall and, beside it, the artist had set up a tent to represent how many of Toronto’s least fortunate must live their nights. This was one of the more poignant exhibits I saw through the evening.

Queens Quay & York, Toronto, 2024

A set of screens were set up in Love Park and rotated the images in them through the night. The eyes that regularly cropped up were eerie at that time of the early morning.

Great Lakes Waterfront & Harbour, Toronto, 2024

Continuing the theme of eyes, this separate video display regularly had an image of an eyeball looking into the audience. When it isolated the older woman I knew I had to hold onto the moment.

Spadina & Queens Quay, Toronto, 2024

One of the marque exhibits of the year were glowing fish that were placed in the harbour. Here, I’ve captured their luminescent being alongside one of the tall ships that is always docked; the effect is spectral, to my eye, with the fish racing towards the ghost-boat.

Bathurst & Queens Quay, Toronto, 2024

Hosting a project that raised the issue of disability inside a basketball court forced audiences to confront the ableism that permeates our lives, and especially contemporary sport. The exhibit forced audiences to acknowledge that disabled athletes have led the way in more accessible design that is now the norm for all athletes, disabled or not. By this time it was about 5am and the crowds were dying down, though spectators and attendees to the festival were still around in smaller numbers.

Richmond & Spadina, Toronto, 2024

This was the last exhibit that I documented and left with an image I was satisfied with. The artists were lowering a multi-coloured spider web that had been elevated above the attendees, when a sole last participant walked through the exhibit despite the efforts to tear it down by sundown. The subject is reaper-like in their image and spoke to the end of the exhibit, and the end of Nuit Blanche for 2024.

Queen & Chestnut, Toronto, 2024

On my way to breakfast I captured this image of Toronto’s City Hall as the sun was just starting to rise. All was quiet, including the parking garages, though the city had begun coming back to life once I got home an hour or so later to crawl into bed before a short nap ahead of afternoon activities.

Tags Art, Monochrome Photography, Photography, Street Photography, Toronto

Photography

Eyeshot 2024 Street and Documentary Photography Competition

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date October 15, 2024

As part of my ongoing efforts to get more comfortable sharing my photographs with a wider audience I started to participate in photographic competitions last year. While I didn’t receive any awards the very act of submitting my work was the personal award that I took away.

This year, for the first time, I’m submitted to a contest with a small fee. I appreciate that many photographers take issue with the “pay to compete” models but this is normal, and I enjoy a level of disposable income that means I can afford to submit to a few contests a year. This post includes the images that I submitted to the Eyeshot 2024 competition, the descriptions I included with the images, and an artist’s statement.

Submitted Images

All of my images are part of a broader documentary project that traces how built environments that I inhabit develop and transform through the seasons, and across the years that I have been photographing my surroundings. As befits this objective, all of my images are titled by their rough location (based on major street intersections), geographic region or city, and the year made.

Toronto is home to a vast waterfront trail which was renovated in 2024 to include a large splash and mist park. On a swelteringly hot day I passed by after it had recently been re-opened and was delighted to see the silhouettes of people — mostly children — playing in the mist, while the looming under-construction condo towers of downtown Toronto provided a sense of youthfulness and activity to the cityscape itself. This photograph captures the youthful energy of Toronto as manifest in its residents and built infrastructures while simultaneously possessing a kind of timelessness as a result of capturing the moment in black and white.

One of Toronto’s most posh shopping areas is Yorkville, where the affluent come out to spend and be seen. I like how this monochromatic photograph results in the two women looking like they could have come from 40 or 60 years ago, while the reflection in the window reveals some of the built infrastructure surrounding them. It speaks to a timelessness that is specifically located to being within a large urban environment.

The Saint Patrick’s Day parade is a major event in Toronto. I’ve been photographing it for years and always march in it to make images of the crowds. I like how the woman in this photograph is almost posing in her winter jacket — it gives her a sense of elegance and self-importance — while, above her, the sign suggests that she is happy we’ve ranked her #1. But in addition to her, the man who is looking on in the right-hand side of the frame adds a degree of electricity to the image with his dourness contrasting with the woman’s own more-positive energy.

When was this photograph taken? 2024 or 1964? The use of black and white has the effect of confusing the viewer as to when the photograph was made. This is accentuated by the sign in the photograph being from another generation. Adding power to the image are the two figures who are wandering through the early January snow, with the young woman looking down and over to the city’s garbage, and the little boy looking up past the trash to the graffiti on the wall. This speaks to the hopes and ambitions of youth and the practicality of maturity, while they are both literally passing by the abandoned garbage of the day.

This photograph is only made possible because of the advertising-heavy urban landscapes in which we live. Taken in downtown Toronto, this photograph juxtaposes a question about one’s life with an idealised (and unrealistic) advertised imagination of excitement, along with a man contemplating his possible future. Him exiting the frame leaves us to wonder whether he will do something to change his life or if, instead, he will continue to live the same life that he always has. We are already left with some sense of his trajectory, however: his walking out to the left of the frame imposes on us a question of whether his movements will take him back to something he once enjoyed in life, or if his retreat through that side of the frame instead symbolises a staidness. Regardless, he will not be moving forward into the future — into the right of the frame — to see some change to his life.

Yonge and Dundas Square is Toronto’s imagined equivalent to
Times Square. In this photograph we see it at peak energy: the two women hiding under a transparent umbrella are huddling together with somewhat shocked looks on their faces, while behind them a woman is running from something out of scene and a giant in white strolls behind them. Photographs like this capture the dynamism of our urban landscapes while, simultaneously, not explaining what is specifically occurring. Instead the viewer is merely left with an ever-growing cascade of questions: Why are the women drinking out of a pineapple in the rain? Why are they shocked? Who is chasing the woman in the background? Why is there a tall white giant wandering around? What is going on with the squatting man in the advertisement? These questions draw the viewer in and invite them to create their own stories of what was before, and followed, the 1/320s that this frame holds together.

Artist’s Statement

I’m an amateur Toronto-based documentary and street photographer, and have been making images for over a decade. I make monochromatic photographs that focus on little moments that happen on the streets and which document the ebb and flow of the city over the course of years and decades. My work often deliberately plays with the temporality of photographs and calls into question when images were made, and invites the viewer to ask what specifically happened immediately prior to and following the pressing of the shutter button.

Tags Art, Monochrome Photography, photographer, Photography, Street Photography

Photography Writing

Editing and Viewing Smartphone Images Versus Dedicated Camera Images

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date October 14, 2024
2 Comments on Editing and Viewing Smartphone Images Versus Dedicated Camera Images

In 2023, Andrea Bianco wrote a lovely long-form meditation on the difference in practice between excellent smart phone cameras (i.e., iPhone 11 Pro) and excellent compact cameras (i.e., Ricoh GR 2). I appreciated that it wasn’t a “smartphones bad and dedicated cameras good” (or the vice versa) kind of assessment. He, instead, considered the utility and capabilities of both classes of cameras. He often noted how phone cameras were best consumed on smaller screens but that their limitations became more apparent when viewed on larger screens.

His post reminded me of some longer-term considerations I’ve had for the past year about the screens on which we assess the images that we make.

Our camera’s screen size, or viewfinder resolution, has an effect on how we compose images. We may try to squeeze in (or exclude) content based on what we can see. However, the screen on which we edit images also affects how we perceive and present the images we have captured.

Editing on smaller screens, such as those used with phones, can lead to presenting images differently than when editing on a larger tablet or computer monitor screen. A figure that is apparent on a 12” or 24” display and is poignant to the photo editing process may functionally be a near-invisible dot on a 6” phone screen.

Eireann Quay & Queens Quay, Toronto, 2024

How we see when editing images, then, will often affect the images which are produced using dedicated cameras by merit of photographers often editing them on larger tablet or laptop screens. By editing on these larger screens we will often make very different editorial or cropping decisions based (in part) on the sheer size of the screen we are reviewing and editing photographs on. The size of the screen (and its quality) affects how we read and interpret our own photographs.

The effects of screen size then expand, further, when we consider what screens we use to view other photographers’ work, and correspondingly lead to very different perceptions of work that photographers are digitally displaying. If a photographer edits all their work on a display of 11” or greater, should we not view it with the same size screen to truly read what they are communicating? And, by way of contrast, if a photographer’s photos are all edited on a smartphone then should we view them primarily at the size of a phone? And either way, shouldn’t we view other photographers’ work at peak screen brightness?

Of course we will all use a variety of different screens, of different sizes and luminosity and quality, to look at one another’s work. But because we are both unaware of one another’s editing and viewing defaults it is imperative to think carefully when looking at photographers’ works and ask ourselves: “Do I have the same equipment as they do, to approximate an attempt to see the photograph and scene as they intended for it to be viewed?”

Note: Updated to correctly refer to Andrea’s gender. Apologies!

Tags iPhone, Monochrome Photography, Photography, Ricoh GR, Smart Phone

Aside

2024.10.14

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date October 14, 2024

I’ve been reading Minimalissimo for at least a decade now and have significantly honed my sense of design and style from the work they’ve curated through the years. As of today, however, the website is shifting into archival mode and no new content will be published.

It’s not the first long-term website closing that has hurt — arguably it is Ming Thein’s that still lingers the worse, followed by Andrew Kim’s Minimally Minimal— but at least the archives of Minimalissimo will remain to reflect on in the coming months and years.

Tags Design, History, Internet, Photography

Photography Writing

10 Tips for Starting to Photograph on the Street

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date September 22, 2024

The democratization of photography means that there are a lot of people who are interested in making images on the streets. However, many are scared of the possible confrontations they may have after taking other people’s images without first getting their permission. There are innumerable videos and essays that offer a lot of tips, but many of the common “tips” just wouldn’t work for me when I was starting out.

By way of background, I’ve been making images in Toronto since 2014 and have used a range of cameras, focal lengths, and so forth. I started out being very hesitant to take people’s images whereas, today, I am pretty comfortable and they are in the majority of the images that I take each week. You can see my most recent images on my Glass profile.

So here are 10 tips that can help you get used to making images on the street based on my own trepidations when I started out.

1. Just Walk Around With Your Camera

When I first purchased my Olympus EM10-II I was really nervous to actually use it in downtown Toronto. What if someone got mad that I was taking their photo?

So my solution at the outset was just to always be carrying my camera to and from work. I had about a 2-3 km walk each way through urban areas and ensured that I had my camera in my hand the whole time.

For me, just always holding the camera in public normalized how it felt to me. It also helped me better appreciate the weight and how it moved in my hand.

2. Don’t Focus on Being “Stealthy”

So many street photography tips focus on being “stealthy”. That can mean using a long lens so that people don’t know you’re taking their photo, to shooting exclusively from waist height, never raising your camera to your eye, and so forth. But when you’re shooting in a stealthy way and someone approaches you, then you’re put in a position of potentially lying to them if you say you weren’t making images.

By being “stealthy” — especially if you’re nervous about confrontation — and getting caught the potential confrontation may be a lot more emotionally charged. By way of contrast, if you’re not sneaking about and you’re being confronted then the emotions are going to be lower at the outset than if you were caught sneaking a shot of someone.

3. Don’t Focus on the People

If you’re anything like me when I started making images in my downtown core, taking images of people was something I aspired to but wasn’t comfortable with. But I lived in a big urban city and there was always lots to see and make images of…and so I made images of graffiti, of buildings, or of art exhibitions, and so forth. And in all cases the images that I captured were in public with other people around.

Again, the focus (no pun intended) was just to get comfortable using my camera in public. I liked capturing ambient images of the city and its life, but really this was me practicing and just getting used to holding and using my camera in public, with the ultimate ambition of including people in my images.

Bonus Sub-Tip: As part of not focusing on people you can also consider looking for scenes and then waiting for people to just wander through the scene. I often will do this, myself: I’ll find a location, raise my camera to my eye, hold it for a minute or two, and only then start making images. Anyone who comes through the scene knows that I was there first — I wasn’t chasing them to make their image — and if someone asks what I’m doing, I can talk about the scene and what drew me to it. This helps to orient any conversations around specific individuals in your photographs being incidental to the image being taken, as opposed to the individuals being the primary focus of the image itself.

4. Practice With a 50mm or Wider Lens

It’s pretty routine advice to get a prime lens and learn with it, especially when taking images of metropolitan areas. To my mind there are a few good reasons for this approach to learning.

First, just in terms of training, a prime prevents you from certain kinds of indecisiveness. When you’re operating a zoom lens you have to wonder which of the focal lengths are “best” and you don’t necessarily learn to “see” in any particular focal lengths. If you only have a 50mm focal length, by way of comparison, then you quickly learn to “see” in that length. And you can still zoom — it just requires using your feet!

Second, a prime lens helps you determine what kinds of images you are, or are not, looking to make. If you’re using a 50mm lens then very wide street images that you can capture with a 28mm are just not going to be made. And that’s fine — you learn to look for images that align with that particular focal length. By imposing a series of restrictions on how you can make an image you can expand your creativity by just focusing on what that focal length can produce.

Third, using a single prime lens will mean that you’re carrying less weight and you won’t end up carrying a whole pile of kit with you. Which brings us to the next tip…

5. Don’t Trudge Around with More Than 1-2 Lenses

If you’re going to wander around the streets then you will benefit from not carrying too many lenses. I’d recommend only stepping out the door with your one prime lens. Not only does having a few lenses lead to creative ambiguity — is lens 1 or 2 or 3 “right” for this scene? — but it means you have to carry more stuff on your person.

Less weight and fewer focal lengths options means that you may be out making images longer and with more creative discipline. And by really leaning into 1 or 2 fixed focal lengths you’ll learn a lot about whether you like those focal lengths and, as importantly, how you can use them when making images.¹

6. Go to Events Where Taking Photographs is Normalized

If there’s a parade, or public art show, or whatever then try to get there and practice taking images of people in those venues. Because it’s a big public event people will tend to be pretty OK with their images being taken. And it will also expose you, a budding photographer, to the challenge of sometimes grabbing a shot in changing light, moving crowds, and so forth.

If you’re feeling particularly daring then you might consider walking alongside a parade or protest, and make images of those who are viewing the event. It’s the “one step up” from making images of the participants of parades and events but still pretty comfortable. Most people in crowds are going to be OK with their images being captured and you’ll have walked past anyone who happened to be annoyed at your photographing them before they emerge from the crowds.

7. Go Out a Lot

I try to get onto the streets for a couple hours every weekend. I have a busy full-time job and photography is my hobby, so I don’t worry about not being able to devote a hour or more every day into making images. I’d love to be able to do so but it’s just not my reality.

This having been said I am always out each weekend. Every year I make thousand of frames and often keep returning to the same spots year over year over year in the hopes of some scenes finally producing an image that I like. And by going out you both get a sense for how light falls in your environments, how people move in them, as well as how the urban environment changes through the year. The more you can predict about the environment and its inhabitants the more likely it is that you’ll collect images that speak to you.

8. Review Your Work

Figure out a review tempo for your work and then keep to it. There are at least two parts to this.

First, you need to review the images that you’re making on the streets. I tend to do quick reviews when I come back but other folks do so days or weeks later. Whatever your tempo is it’ll be important to look to see what you’re capturing. It’s the only way to really understand how your creative vision is being interpreted using the camera and lens that you’re carrying.

Second, I’d encourage you to do either monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, or annual assessments of the images that you’re taking. Go through and pick out your top 10-20 images and really think about why they’re your favourites. And, also, how would you want them to be improved? What more might you have done?

As you go through more of these reviews also do comparisons to past favourite images — it’s by undertaking this kind of self-assessment or critique that you’ll be able to see whether you are growing or stretching as a photographer, as well as detect themes or commonalities in what you are being attracted towards.

9. Post Some of Your Work Online

Lots of photographers use some kind of online service to post their images. What you use doesn’t really matter. But having a published set of images means that if someone does ask you what you’re doing on the streets, you can quickly direct them to your online work so they can see you’re doing something artistic and genuine.

If someone does ask about you about what you’re doing just be honest: you’re starting out as a photographer and like capturing urban environments. Maybe the person in question looked interesting. And you can show them a selection of your work which will reveal you are treating photography at least somewhat seriously as opposed to just taking creepy shots of people on the street.²

10. Have Fun and Ignore Equipment

Street photography is a fun hobby whether you’re out with a smartphone camera, using a film camera or DSLR, or playing with a mirrorless camera. Don’t worry about having “the right” camera or one that is sufficiently new. Any camera that has been made in the past 10 years is going to be more than enough when you’re in the streets for the first time. Don’t focus on the equipment and, instead, just enjoy the fun that comes from focusing intently on the built environment, light, and the people who pass through the streets.

Those are my own 10 tips — what tips would you give a younger version of yourself, today, based on your experiences to date?

If you just want to use the kit lens that came with your camera — likely a zoom lens — then just set it to a single fixed focal lens and restrict in in place with some electrical tape. ↩︎
Of course, if you are just taking creepy shots of people — such as some street photographers who use massive zoom lenses to exclusively take long distance photographs of attractive people — then this will just “out” you and what you’re up to. Don’t be one of those people! ↩︎

Tags Photography, Street Photography

Aside

2024.9.17

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date September 15, 2024

In an unexpected but pleasant twist, tonight, I chatted with a friend about what I saw in the images I’d posted to Glass throughout the year. He has an artistic background and was often able to see — and speak to — things that I’d not considered previously. It’s also clear that I’m getting better at explaining and outlining what’s in my images, the common thematics and how they’re developing over time, and able to provide critique to past work.

So a pleasant twist and progress!

Tags Critique, Glass, Photography

Photography

Accidentally Discovered Street Photos

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date August 6, 2024

I recently purchased Conversations with Contemporary Photographers, following my recent reading of On Street Photography and the Poetic Image. As a bit of a surprise, I discovered that my recently purchased book included a strip of exposed Kodak 100TX film. I don’t think I’ve actually seen or held a strip of physical film before and I certainly haven’t ever tried to digitize it before today.

Given that this was a bit of a lark I ended up using Filmbox to create quick digital scans. This is a an iOS application where you hold the film a few inches away from a white screen and, then, use the application to capture any given frame.

I can’t claim that the process is perfect nor that the results are spectacular. But they do have the effect of letting me see more clearly what the different frames on this thing strip of film more clearly look like.

None of these photos were made by me. I have no idea where they were made. But I suspect the film is from within the past 20 years or so, based on the clothing when when the book was published. All of them are reproduced, below, with the only ‘edit’ being to fully convert them to black and white.

Tags Film, Photography, Street Photography, Streetscape

Photography

Adding Geolocation Information Into Apple Photos

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date August 5, 2024

One of the best things about the iPhone is that each photo that you take automatically can be geolocated. I really appreciate this because I can quickly ‘zoom into’ different parts of the world and see the images I took in that place.

However, I take very few iPhone photos these days. For the past several years almost all of my images were made on either a Fuji X100F, Leica Q2, or a Ricoh GR or GRIIIx. None of these cameras have GPS modules. The result is that they do not natively add geolocation, or GPS, information into images metadata.

Fuji and Leica do have apps that you can use to add GPS information to photos taken with their respective cameras. However, actually setting them up takes a number of steps. Moreover, it requires you to have — and open — applications associated with the camera I’m using at any given time.

Instead of using manufacturer-specific applications I have purchased lifetime licences for Geotags Photos Pro 2 and Geotag Photos Tagger.¹ In Canada, the Geotags Photos Pro 2 was just $15 and Geotags Photo Tagger is $12. While not free, the I use the applications each week and I’m well below $1/use at this point, and all of my photos for over the past year are accurately tagged.

Using the applications, and adding the metadata, is very easy. Once you ensure that you’ve set the timezones up correctly between your camera and the application….you’re finished. All you need to do is activate Geotags Photos Pro 2 ahead of going out for a photowalk (I tend to have it collect the GPS information every 5 minutes) and, after the photowalk, I put all my images into Apple Photos and then open Geotags Photos Tagger to apply the GPS information to all the images I’ve taken.

That’s it: once you’ve done this you’re done.

As a street photographer I’m most interested in posting photos with names that include the cross-streets of where an image was taken. So having GPS information is helpful for this purpose. But when I’ve been out for hikes it also does a good job locating different photographs that I’ve made — so long as my phone can get geolocation information I can then add the data to my mirror less camera images.

In conclusion: If you’re looking for a pretty easy, and affordable, way of adding GPS data to your images I can’t recommend these two applications enough!

These applications are available for both iOS and Android. ↩︎

Tags Android, Geolocation, iOS, Photography