On Friday afternoon, I got a message from a photography friend from Michigan. She would be in town on Saturday, and she suggested a photowalk.
The walk ended with this portrait in a coffee shop in the Distillery district.
Our Sunday morning gathering of photographers has had the chance to say hello to documentary film maker Rachel a couple of times has she has stopped in at the Paper Route cafe in East York. And the light was beautiful when she stopped in this morning.
Normally ultra-wide lenses and portraiture don’t go all that well together. But if the angle is right the results can be interesting, I think. Because his face is in the middle of the frame and is straight on, there is minimal distortion.
I love lots of shadows in my portraits. This one is from an outing with friends at a coffee shop a few days ago.
I took this portrait of my friend Michael yesterday.
I recently purchased a TTArtisan 75mm f/1.5 lens (a copy of a famous and very expensive Zeis BIotar lens from the early-mid twentieth century), and this is the first portrait I took with it that I am really happy with. It’s a manual focus lens, and my eyes are not getting any younger, so focusing wide open does have its challenges.
A friend looked may the portrait and said it was “balanced.” That description works for me!
Last evening I was at a show opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto at the invitation of a friend. The building is an old factory, and still has that vibe; he showed me a stairwell that went nowhere and I thought it was the perfect spot for a portrait, so out came the iPhone.
I met up with my friend Yuri this morning. He is an amazing photographer who can find something interesting in any setting.
Normally one tries to avoid hard shadows in portrait photography. But last Sunday, sitting by a window in coffee shop on a brilliantly sunny morning, I decided to go with the hard shadows, and go for an affect of anonymity.
I was at a coffee shop yesterday (for a photo print exchange event as it was), and this person was sitting near a window, and the light was perfect. The goalie mask in the background was a problem. I ended up with an “Alas, poor Yorik” moment.
The Hasselblad does not have a reputation as a great camera for available light shooting, and this portrait shot indoors on Ilford XP2 film is not technically perfect, but I like the expression.
Hasselblad 500CM, 80mm/f2.8 Planar lens
Ilford XP2 film
My Third Eye 