F/8 Street Photography Magazine by Gareth Danks - On My Bookshelf S03E10
My bookshelf has always had more than just landscape photography books on it but this is the first time I'm looking at something from the street photography genre.
Not Just Landscapes
Over the years I’ve bought lots of books on photography. They are a great source of inspiration and education. If you were to look at my bookshelf you would of course see a lot of books on landscape photography, but you would also see books from different genres of photography. Though landscape photography is my passion, I’m a firm believer that I can still develop my own photography by looking at photographs from all genres.
Saying that though there is one genre of photography that has been missing from my bookshelf and that’s street photography. There’s no particular reason for that but when I heard Gareth Danks was self-publishing a new magazine on street photography, I knew I should take a look and dip my toe into street photography publications.
Street Photography
In this episode of On My Bookshelf, I’m looking at issues one and two of F/8 Street Photography magazine. A magazine isn’t something I’d normally consider making an episode of On My Bookshelf for but what makes this magazine interesting is that it features a lot of community content. Plus, unlike many of the magazines that you might see in a newsagent the print quality is a noticeable step above the rest. Let’s take a look.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of On My Bookshelf. Regardless of your level of interest in street photography, F/8 Street Photography magazine is well worth checking out.
A Bit of Bath
I was in Bath to attend Foto Fest so I took the opportunity to meet up with Gareth Danks to do a little street photography!
Foto Fest
It seems that the team at Fotospeed have a nack of being able to pull together a lineup of great speakers. I saw this first hand at The Photography Show this year where I was lucky enough to listen to some talks from some wonderful photographers. With their excellent record of organising speaker lineups it came as no surprise that for Foto Fest 2019 they organised Tom Way, Rachael Talibart, Nigel Danson and Martin Parr! With the location of Foto Fest less than 100 miles away in Bath and that excellent line up I really couldn’t miss this cracking event, again.
These types of event are always a good chance to meet up with friends so it was fantastic to hear that my friend and fellow photographer Gareth Danks was going to join me in Bath. As with our meeting at The Photography Show earlier on in the year, we would of course use this as an opportunity to do a little photography as well, but more about that later.
Let me give you a quick review of Foto Fest first. Put simply, I thought it was great! I was thoroughly engaged by all four speakers. Even though I could relate more to the work of Rachael and Nigel, I found Tom’s wildlife photography fascinating and Martin’s review of his 50-year career was both hugely interesting and very humorous. Each talk was a perfect length (about 1 hour) and each talk was separated by a break allowing me to check out the Market Place (and perhaps spend a few £’s!) At the end of the day all four photographers were brought together for a Q+A session hosted by Sam Gregory.
It was a top-notch show and I really hope I can attend again next year. I definitely recommend that you attend as well.
Urban Photography
With Foto Fest done, me and Gareth decided to head down into the beautiful city of Bath for a spot of street photography. Well, I say we, but really it was Gareth that was doing the street photography and I was stumbling behind with my camera try to try and figure out compositions. If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know that I am about as far away as a street photographer as one can be, but that doesn’t stop me trying as you might have seen in this video:
While my first attempt wasn’t exactly a roaring success, I did really enjoy it and wanted to do it again. So with Gareth in Bath as well it seemed the perfect opportunity to give it another go. Below you’ll find a selection of my urban / street images from the brief time we spent in Bath.
I know these images aren’t going to win any awards but sometimes you just need to let go of the serious side of photography, try something new and have a bit of fun with a mate!
Don’t worry, I’ll be back on the blog next week with some “serious” landscape photographs.
Oh and before I forget, here is Gareth’s video from his time in Bath!
Capturing the Decisive Moment - On the Streets of Birmingham with the Fujifilm X-T2
After watching a few videos on street photography I was inspired to give it a try myself. So armed with a Fujifilm X-T2 I hit the streets of Birmingham. Was I able to capture the decisive moment?
The Fujifilm X-T2, Street Photography and Being Inspired
I'd never really considered doing street photography before. I've definitely enjoyed looking at street photography much in the same way that I like and appreciate many different genres of photography. However, actually going out and doing a bit of street photography didn't really seem like my kind of thing.
Recently though I've been coming around to the idea that street photography might indeed be something I’d want to try. I think most of this new found motivation has come from watching street photography videos from my good friend, photographer and fellow vlogger Gareth Danks. The more I watched his videos the more I wanted to give this genre of photography a try.
When I mentioned this Gareth he very kindly offered to take me out and help me capture some street photographs. As fortune would have it we were both spending a couple of days at The Photography Show a few weeks back so we decided that we should hit the streets of Birmingham on the Saturday evening. I was really excited about the prospect of trying something new with my photography.
As I was going to try something new with my photography, I thought I also needed a new camera for the job. But what camera should I get for street photography? Well, there was only one camera I was really considering and that was a Fujifilm. So I got myself a Fujifilm X-T2 and hit the streets with my Fujifilm camera and street photography guru, Gareth.
Can I Capture that Decisive Moment?
So how did I get on? Did I manage to get some good street photographs? Let's find out…
Learning Photography All Over Again
As you'll have seen in the video I didn't find street photography easy. To be honest though, I didn't think I would. It was actually a bit like learning photography all over again. Plus I had the added challenge of learning a new camera system. However, despite all that I really, really enjoyed it. I was lucky to not only have Gareth to help with composition, camera setup, but to also to video it for me. I don't think I would have been able to manage my vlogging camera along with everything else.
All that aside, I liked the challenge of finding and capturing compositions. In some respects, it’s the same as landscape photography. You find a good composition and you wait for the right moment, but in a city environment, you need to have your eyes trained in a different way. Gareth was just wondering about picking out compositions and at first, I was just walking by everything. Step by step though, I started getting into the flow. Yes, it was a challenge, but a fun challenge.
Rent or Buy
It's worth pointing out that while I did use a Fujifilm X-T2 for this shoot, I did not buy this camera. I've always wanted to try a Fujifilm camera so for this street photography shoot I decided to rent one for the weekend. I got my rental through WEX Rental. Service was fast and efficient and I got the whole weekend rental for the cost of just one day's normal rental. I also paid for delivery and collection service so it was delivered and collected from my house on Friday and Monday respectively. Great service!
Birmingham Street Photography
I'm certainly not going to claim that my photographs are amazing. Like any genre of photography, it's going to require a lot of practice to ever get even remotely good. However, I very much enjoyed the experience so I'm keen to do more and see how my street photography progresses.
Have you done any street photography before? Got any street photography tips? What is your favourite location? Let me know in the comments below.
Finally, here are some of the photos I captured.
