{% include image.html img=”https://static.thenewsprint.co/media/2019/09/Cavalier-August-2019-1.jpeg” title=”Cavalier August 2019” caption=”Despite little going on on this blog, the camera has been fairly active this summer.” %}

Every single year, Cavalier’s Icelandic State Park promises hot weather. This summer was no exception — with temperatures hovering in the high 30s with humidity (low 100s for my imperial system readers), Cavalier roasted our poor skin.

Conversely, the campground at Icelandic State Park is treed in such a way as to provide fantastic light for shooting photographs. Rain or shine, that campground seems to produce our favourite family photos each summer.

And as our little girl grows older (and as she develops more — what’s the word — “personality”), it’s these photos we keep coming back to time and again.

{% include image.html img=”https://static.thenewsprint.co/media/2019/08/Toronto-Street-4.jpg” title=”Toronto Street Photography” caption=”I’m not much of a street photographer, but a recent Fujifilm X-Pro 2 purchase meant I had to give the genre a shot.” %}

Street photography isn’t my particular strong suit. A take a lot of product photos, photos of my daughter, and photos of buildings (especially when I travel), so street photography has never made it to the top of my shoot list.

However, a recent Fujifilm X-Pro 2 purchase begged for a few “shoot-from-the-hip” style photographs.

I saw a Youtube video once where the gentleman shot with a Leica. He set aperture and manual focus ahead of time, then walked down the street and made conversation with random strangers as they walked by. Throughout the conversation, he’d shoot different photos of the stranger, often coming up with the most candid, most personal shots of a happy stranger in need of a compliment. The shutter of the camera was so quiet and the conversation so bubbly, the subject never knew they were being photographed.

It was one of the coolest ways of shooting I’d ever seen. (Although, perhaps, not a method I’d recommend, as it’s not the coolest thing to be shooting photos of complete strangers without their knowing.)

Now, I didn’t do this in Toronto — I don’t have the type of personality to strike up random conversations with busy city-goers just trying to get home after a long day of work. Instead, I shot from the hip and flew by the seat of my pants.

Some came out looking neat. Others, well — I still have some learning to do.

(Made with the Fujifilm X-Pro 2, Fujifilm 23mm f/2 WR and Fujifilm 16mm f/1.4 R WR lenses.)