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Got into a little disagreement in a back alley with four burly Bangladeshis (oxymoronic, I know) late at night. Survived. A late start to some night shooting meant I didn’t have a lot of time. A fairly unremarkable night otherwise. Just in the churning out process at the moment. 170 photos. Worked outside from 8:30pm to 11pm.
- The most interesting part of the night was the confrontation. Standard shot of men sitting around in the light outside of their house. I took it and walked off. Behind me the biggest of the group gave chase. I stopped, turned back and approached. I said I’d be happy to delete the picture, to which he responded, ‘of course you’re going to delete it’ and then started a course on Ethics and the legal implications. As always happens in Bangladesh, he was joined by 20 other people who have nothing better to do. I told him that it was perfectly legal (I still haven’t checked if that’s right here) and apologised. But they continued to shout at each other in the uncouth way that Bengalis on the streets tend to. I shook my head, turned around and walked away. It was tense, but I defended my right to shoot. I produce enough that I’m not too worried about the lost photo. My story about being an art student doing a project didn’t really fly with these guys.
- Of course, the incident had a psychological impact. But I forced myself to get through it. Out of the 1000s of shots I take a week, I’ve only been confronted a handful of times. Ethically, I have no problems with what I am doing. Every time this happens is another chance to become experienced in handling this situation.
- Perhaps I need a break from shooting night work for a day. I was a little uninspired, the colours looked flat and grey, and the photos came out a little predictable. It was a bog standard day with additions to what has come before. One day of shooting Archiface may make me fresher when I go out.
- Technically, I was shooting a higher ISO, and although this froze more action, I think it did result in flatter colours. I forgot to try the higher saturation or any of the white balance stuff. Need to do that the next time I shoot. I did try to improve the greyness by having less negative exposure compensation but this resulted in images that were too bright, and which didn’t isolate the light very well.
Why tomorrow will be better
- Need to take a day off to freshen up, recharge, insert your own cliché here.
- Need to pre program white balance for really fluorescence.
- Set higher saturation.
- Need to start a little earlier and be in less of a hurry, really need to study how to isolate the light and get enough tension in the frame.
Posted 2 years ago
