Brick Red

Most weekdays, I try to take a walk, camera in hand, rather than sit at my desk and eat (and work, too). Street photography is somewhat of a challenge for me, since, when I first got into photography, I tended to shy away from shooting people. I’ve made it my mission in 2012 to get out of my comfort zone and shoot a lot more street, using only a 35mm or 50mm lens in order to get up close and personal. After notching about 25 or so walks like this, I’ve noticed, surprisingly, that people either don’t notice me or don’t care.

I watched a video over at Kelby Training a while back during which the eponymous Scott Kelby spent a day with Jay Maisel up in NYC shooting street. One of the bits of advice Jay gave was to find your stage and they players will come. When I’m out walking, I like to try and find interesting walls, backgrounds, and textures, and the wall in this photo was one I hadn’t seen before. It was my great fortune that this woman came walking around the corner in that glorious red coat. Lucky for me my player showed up early and I still had time to get a decent lunch in me. Incidentally, the stuff and Kelby training is great and worth the subscription fee. They also give away a handful of 24-hour test drives each day.

One last note: I processed this using VSCO film for Lightroom from Visual Supply Co. It’s one of the best film emulsion emulators I’ve seen yet for either Lightroom or Photoshop. This is Portra 160+, with a contrast bump and very slight vignette. It’s a fantastic little suite.