Learning Evaluation

I’ve really gained a lot from this section. Mainly in my confidence to photograph people and not feel as though I’m being the voyeur or feeling that I should obtain their permission before taking their image. Generally people don’t care about photographers being there (unless they’re an inconvenience).

I’m still happier using long lenses, where I can be a physical distance from them – I think people are more themselves when they’re unaware of the camera and the extra distance gives them more confidence too. There’s obviously still a place for the shorter lenses, particularly when placing the subject in context with their surroundings. Including the subject to the side of a wide angle lens means that they’re unaware of being in the frame, so that can be an advantage. Using the standard length lens was also a good exercise and it was useful to use it at the show event, as I didn’t have to consider what focal length to choose – it also has a wider aperture so there’s an easy opportunity to throw the rest of the image out of focus if required.

The public space exercise has brought it all together for me and I’m now quite comfortable taking people’s images without a second thought.