A Couple's Journey Around a Food Market (An Organised Event)

Well, I thought after completing this exercise that the research paid off and everything went as smoothly as I hoped. The whole idea I had in mind hinged upon whether a stranger or preferably a couple of strangers were willing to let me photograph them as they browsed around the market.

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2. Being introduced to the market (the couple are on the right).

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   Everything ran like clockwork. I walked up to the first couple I found and soon I was taking photos from almost every angle and viewpoint I could conceive of them. The couple actually enjoyed my attention but crucially not so much as to affect the nature of the 'shoot'. This meant I could photograph their faces (often from the side or behind the stalls) without the photographs looking staged. I could also suggest the makings of a story through these photos in order to explain what was going on.

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  Soon I became more comfortable and started to think more lucidly about framing and compsition. I could then also concentrate more on expression, which admittedly I felt was more under my control than lighting or colour. The expressions were sometimes limited to hand gestures. This was because the strong sunlight  dictated sunglasses being worn, at least by half of the couple! However this worked well in producing telling moments with the hands explaining when they were buying things off the stalls.

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10. An exchange at a dramatic angle

   I used a range of focal lengths from 18-55mm and found I leaned towards the wider side of that focal range for two reasons. The first was that the nature of a wider field of view produced a more involved feel to those images as I had discovered in the exercise 'Close and involved'. Secondly, it showed off the rest of the market and its goers more effectively. If I did use the longer end of the focal length range I was using it was for framing convenience or because I had spotted a lively facial expression.

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21. Getting ready to leave

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