50mm Little Burgundy Montreal

From the 50mm Little Burgundy series, these architectural shots are today's blog subject.

For the past two years I have used my first body camera and its wide angle lens to produce my street and architectural Photography series. Here and there I have taken my old trusted D3100 with my 50mm lens to street shoot. Here, I have done just that in Montreal's Little Burgundy. The switch between the two cameras and lens is a significant change in camera features and a major shift in lens focal and attributes. Going back so seldom to a different setup and gear can challenge your eye, reflexes and creativity. It even challenges my Photoshop reflexes. That is the point of doing this ; destabilizing my little comfort to shake my creativity and agility.

Composition, perspective and framing are the three techniques presenting the most difficult adjustment in the switch of gear. But light metering and focus too, the D3100 doesn't control auto focus on the 50mm f/1.8D lens. Shutter speed and Aperture are mostly the same as is white balance. The fixed focal length will force you to move around a lot and it will force you to compose differently. In street photography with architectural subjects it will force you to treat the subject differently because there is only a few meters of space to move before your back is against the wall.

With that set up, possibilities in perspective are quite limited as opposed to a wide lens. Frame 2 of this blog is a demonstration of the challenge in managing perspective. To obtain a decent composition and angle, I had to climb onto some private house stairway. Frame 5 below is another example. Fitting the whole building in the frame was impossible. Therefore, I was forced to wisely compose church features and elements on the street.

I recommend this exercise to everyone, it will force you to adjust and rethink, it will open new perspectives for creative composition and mostly it will force you to analyse the subject differently.

Tous droits réservés - all rights reserved : FOTOISO3200/2014/Éric Soucy

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