Well this wasn't a difficult image to spot. I see this very same scene everyday because the bush is in the park of my town and I cross it everyday. Children play inside this bush all the time, they love popping out of it standing on the branches, and parents and grandparents have to follow, help, untangle children from it all the time. Which is why the bush is hollow. I always find amusing watching the grown ups disappear inside the bush while the children pop up and this is why I went to the park and tried to capture the scene for the Yard's street contest. Since I started looking for this capture, of course the temperature dropped and it started raining and it rained for days If I remember well I finally got my photo during a weekend I took it with my point and shoot because honestly taking the photo of a stranger's  butt and somebody else's kid with a dSLR could be easily noticed in a park for families and considered weird and suspicious. I AM that weird, of course, though there is no need to tell the world about it, is there? Unfortunately this was one of my first shots with the SAMSUNG EX1, the rough composition is due to my clumsiness framing through a tilted LCD, and the settings were 'smartly' chosen by the 'smart' mode of the camera. So much for technique in this photo, sorry . I tried to have man and kid lined up and to click in the moment I had a body without head and a head without body, because I thought it would have added to the surreal feeling. I turned the image in b/w (once again I totally suck at converting in b/w images with so much green, but praise be to Silver Efex!) to make the bodies blend better in the bush.

Well, this shot was taken at the famous beach of Ipanema, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There is a beach culture in Rio, and they are integrated with the urban landscape. People spend their free time chilling out at the beach to cool off from the hot temperatures of Rio and to have sunbaths, and this is not only restricted to summer but happens along the entire year.

I was on my beach towel enjoying the beach on that sunny blue day, of course having my camera around, and went to the sea for a swim. When I was back, I noticed right beside where I was that this woman was reading that magazine right in front of her face, just with the right page showing off at the back of it! I had to be fast, because i was all wet and the camera was with a wide angle adapter mounted on my 18-105mm Nikkor, which is nice for wide shots at 18mm but when you zoom in, everything gets blurry and out of focus. I took it off the lens and made a couple of frames with that same lens, trying not to include anyone's faces and to have a story to tell, by also including that woman on the background, maybe as a critic for nowadays society with all the obsession to a given pattern of accepted beauty. I was lucky that I didn't change the lens at all to my fixed 50mm which is my favorite lens for street, because I was right on time for the shot before she turned the page and ruined everything. Luckily I was there to capture the scene before it took off, fast enough to make the manual settings adjustments and take off the wide angle adapter. I guess my best street shots were made just like this, fast thinking and unexpectedly.

Those beaches get extremely crowded on weekends, specially if the weather is good, and that day was no exception. If you walk around such place with the camera in hands, people start to act differently and almost always notice you, and my camera does not contribute to discretion since it's a huge dSLR. Because they are on the beach wearing bathing suits, I believe they feel more vulnerable, not to mention that there is not much to hide since you're in the middle of the sand and don't have much resorts compared to the streets when it comes to pretending you are not taking a picture of them! So it's not a very friendly enviromnet to street photography.

I notice that places in Europe are very different from here (Brazil) when it comes to the behaviour of people. European people tend not to be always looking at you and stuff, but in Brazil everybody is always looking at everybody, and if you have a camera the thing just gets worse! I feel that in Europe, the last thing people think you will do with your camera is to take a shot of them, unless you give them a reason to believe that you will. In Brazil it is just the opposite! People will always think that you are there with your camera mostly to take a picture of them, even if you don't give them any reason to believe in that! So things get a bit more complicated. Even more in a beach.

1/250 f2.8 (I think.)

So,
I was walking up into downtown Vancouver with Frank (a dutch photographer I met through other friends in Canada, great bloke) and just around the corner out of Gastown (touristy 'historic district' area) I saw this chap with his pig-ears hat, impressive black and grey beard, and incredibly intense eyes sitting and chatting with another man in front of a rather seedy (or just punk-ish) looking bar. He of course stood out a little to anyone who doesn't just walk the streets in a rush to the next boutique, and the picture I wanted instantly popped into my mind. So, for the first and only time during my stay in Canada, I asked a stranger if I could take his picture, or rather, told him, in the nicest avaible-to-me way, that I HAD to take his picture. He looked at me for a second as if he wasn't sure what to make of me, and then said, with the most relaxed voice: "Yeeah you can take my picture."
I didn't ask him to do anything, just went in as close as my Nokton would allow, more or less (about 70cm). he gave me the 'rocker' hand sign for two shots.
"I'm gonna take one more." (I think I was at 80cm by then)
"I'm gonna give you the fuck-off."
"Yeh, give me the fuck-off."
and I knew that last one did it. Because it was so cliché, almost ironic, but real and idividual, maybe even iconic (iconic and ironic are ridiculously close to one another, huh?) at the same time. Grahic too, naturally, and wonderfully surreal. I like the idea that it is not entirely certain how serious he is about that finger - is he telling me to fuck off, or does he find it amusing to have his gritty, stylish, and a bit silly portrait taken on the street by a random bypasser. "Thank you very much, sir, and have a good day" I said, he and his conversational partner kindly replied in the same manner and Frank and I moved on.
This is a special shot for me because many essential things in it aren't necessarily essential in a lot of my other photographs (which isn't a bad thing for me). But the biggest surprise was still waiting for me when I showed the pictures to other people from Vancouver. One of them instantly said: "You know who this is, don't you Simon? Punk rock legend Chi Pig. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Chinn ."
No, I had no freaking idea the bloke I 'randomly' took a portrait of is a bloody canadian punk rock legend!
I am still not sure if he realised I had absolutely no idea who he was either. Should I ever get the chance to meet him again I will make sure he gets a proper baryte print of this.

I had just finished reading the Brooklyn Follies by Paul Austin. When I saw this man he looked like someone who fit a concept from the book.
The protagonist was musing on about how there are so many untold stories within the city. His being just one.
That idea lingered with me. I was not intending to be inspired by it...but when i saw this man
the way he held himself, the way he melded with his environment, he exuded so much character and seemed to me to have sprung straight from a book about a native New Yorker.
The first shot i got of him was full figure with him in motion.
I tried several shots of him...and by serendipity he stood still long enough for me to get these shots.
I wasn't focused at first on the reflection of him...that was an added bonus as i had my eye on him.
It added more dimension and mystery to the idea about an untold bio.
I had to stoop down in order to get this angle and include more of the buildings in the frame.
I have no problem doing such things in my home-town. First--no one really cares and second...I sort of have a feeling like I own the town....since three generations of my family paid the price to make such a claim.
The camera I used...a cheap digital was one i liked taking around with me in this area which can get rough. i usually had to use with the wide angle lens since the adapter for it was stuck on the camera. This particular day--I opted to use it without the wide angle lens.
I did not know that it would leave a vignette from the adapter on the shots. Several of which followed after other subjects walked into the focal point.
None of which lingered long enough for me to get as focused a shot as this character.
By the way...did I mention I was late for an appointment since I got thoroughly distracted spending a good ten minutes standing by that puddle to get a few shots.

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