A bit of food and the last chance saloon...

I was out in town today, doing some shopping taking a few photos when I could and resting in between to get some food and rest.

We happened across a nice Greek restaurant/bar called Ergon where I chose to have a (fantastic) omelette and fries, as below.

Nikon Df, 50mm, f/2, 1/125s, ISO100

A few shops later we needed another break.
It looked like this guy needed a break too.

Nikon Df, 50mm, f/2, 1/100s, ISO100

Beach huts and a captain

When it comes to the British coastline, I don't expect white, sandy beaches but instead look forward to colourful beach huts.

I've seen them in West Wittering and more recently in Whitstable.
This was one of the first outings where I felt more at home with the 20mm f/3.5 AIS Nikon lens. Although I love wide-angles, perhaps I'm more used to the ultra-wide 14mm or the not-so-wide 24mm...and so it took a while for me to become accustomed to the middle-of-the-pack 20mm.

Nikon Df, 20mm, f/5.6, 1/640s, ISO50

Nikon Df, 20mm, f/5.6 1/320s, ISO50

Nikon Df, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/1250s, ISO50

A Black and White day

Yesterday (Saturday), I went to Bethnal Green (again) to see more of the area. It's definitely still an up-and-coming place...a bit rough around the edges with corners, bridge underpasses and alleyways that you don't want to hang around too late after sunset - well at least not when I'm about with my see-in-the-dark Df...

It leads somewhere: Nikon Df, 24mm, f4.5, 1/160s, ISO100

Behind the Tree: Nikon Df, 24mm, f/2.0, 1/800s, ISO100

Historical perspective

Partly through having been in the same job for almost 10years (and being a bit bored of my immediate office area), my photography has stagnated.
Weekends don't always offer the opportunity I need to take photos, so I've decided to make more of either my journey there or of the one back home.

This morning I decided to take a little longer to get to work, via the overground, getting off at Wapping and walking from there.

Along the way I gave in to curiosity by the very old Prospect of Whitby and walked tentatively down some algae covered steps at the end of a narrow alley way.
There I was surprised to see a hangman's noose silhouetted (because the contrast was so high) against the Canary Wharf skyline.

Ricoh GRDiv, ISO80, f/9.0 1/1150s

The Ricoh GRDiv is supposed to produce its highest image quality at around f/4.5~f/5.0 so in hindsight I probably should have opened up the aperture a little more. I ended up at f/9.0 simply because my shutter speed kept hitting 1/2000s at the beginning and I took drastic actions to avoid it.

Unfortunately on the way back up the stairs I failed to see the thick, metal frame surrounding the open gate through which I had walked through on my way down and bumped my head hard.
I felt a bit dizzy for a few hours afterwards but don't seem to have suffered any further ill effects.

Into the light

It's been a while again. I haven't been taking photos much recently and of those I've taken I haven't been particularly happy with.

However with the recent, better weather my mood has also lifted and I want to take photos again.
It may take me a while to get back into the swing of things and I also have a backlog of photos to get through (even if I might be taking photos more regularly).

Ricoh GRDiv, ISO80, f/2.8, 1/640s

Through the square window

What attracted me to this one at first was the food sitting on the window sill!
Then I saw some movement behind the bar and discovered that the people inside had realised that they were being photographed.
Anyway it was all good-humoured and it probably provided them with a bit of light entertainment and me with a photo.
The colour version didn't turn out so well due to the mixed lighting - early dusk outside and dark and fluorescent lighting on the inside, so it was a good candidate for a B&W conversion.

If street photography is about going unnoticed, then this must be a fail but I do like their friendly reaction to the camera!

ISO 2500, f/5.6, 1/30, RAW

Back of the Cheese grater

Here I'm underneath the Lloyd's building and the main structure in the middle is what I believe to be the Cheese Grater.

It may not be its official name, but from the front it looks serrated, resulting in the given name.

So far we have the Gerkin, the Shard, the Cheese Grater and the Mobile Phone. I'll have to try to get some photos of all of them at some point.

One too many

I saw this man wandering around with his can of beer before he finally sat himself down amongst his friends.
I sometimes wonder what "street people" think.
Do they have regrets? What do they regret?
Can you really solve problems by drinking?
Do they yearn for their youth again? Another attempt?
Do they have children or siblings?
Are they totally lost or is it possible to communicate with them given a topic of interest?

ISO200, f/2.8, 1/60s, RAW

Focused

I was in Brick lane, with a friend of my girlfriend, first to drink coffee and snack, followed by a close study of graffiti art.

I took my re-modified X100s, hoping to do a bit of street photography.

Initially, I relied on autofocus (not always aiming properly).

This effort was via the autofocus route. Later, I managed to use a bit of zone focusing + hyperfocal distance, using the distance markers in the screen/EVF. The zone focusing was actually quite good, perhaps better than the autofocus attempts, especially when shooting from the hip.

This one didn't quite make it into focus but I like the shot nevertheless. The barista seemed to be very into her job.

ISO1600, f/2.8, 1/30s, jpeg (B&W conversion in pp)

Breakaway

We got up reasonably early today (for a Bank holiday Monday) and headed down to West Wittering with Chloe, in her stylish Fiat Cinquecento.
West Wittering is one of the few, finely-grained, sandy beaches on the south coast of England that I'm aware of. The coast there is slightly reminiscent of the Normandy / Pas de Calais beaches. They're long and quite deep/wide, especially during low tide.

After spending around 30min acting as a solar panel, I went for a walk by myself to find out what was there.
Although West Wittering attracts a lot of visitors on a day like this, there are still lots of things to look at, away from people.

The sun was a bit too high at times but it also created some high contrast, which made for a good black and white conversion.
Here is used the X100s with a Hoya protective filter.
I don't normally like to use filters on my lenses, but since I'm not using the Fuji hood, I feel that I should protect the lens until I can find a suitable and improved workaround.