Stanthinking

Stan Davies recently wrote us an article for this column that was headed with a wonderful street photography image taken in Norway. You can pop back in the history and look at it - it's worth the read.

To get this sort of success he engaged in Stanthinking, and I want to recommend it to the readers - it really is a key to success:

a. Stan Thought #1.

" I'm going to Norway. This is a long bus ride from Perth and they are going to be fussy about the amount of baggage you carry with you. I need to travel light. But..."

b. Stan Thought #2

" That's a long way to go to take pictures and you don't want to risk an equipment failure while you're there. Why go just to have trouble? I need to take the most reliable camera I have. Answer - the Leica Q. "

c. Stan Thought #3

" Travel shooting depends on battery power. What if I'm caught out and can't constantly get to the recharger? Take a spare battery..."

This is fine so far - he's in Oslo with a camera that has a fixed lens - no dust intrusion to spoil his images. The lens is a superb wide-angle with a fast aperture and the camera will support high ISO. He can tackle nearly anything, so it's out onto the sunlit street. As you will have read in his article, he had further Stanthoughts.

D. Stan Thought #4

" That sunlight is going to glare out everything - but the shadows are what make the composition - they all lead to the people. I need to modify the light. "

Here he did the smart thing - he didn't drag out a massive flash gun and try to overpower the sun - he'd have been a nuisance to himself and the rest of the people in the street. He merely dodged sideways and ducked under the cover of an awning - blocking the sun's disc. He knew that even if the shadows went inky, there was enough dynamic range in the Leica Q that meant that it could be recovered. And so it proved.

It was the work of a moment, but there was a good deal of instinctive thinking there that made that moment work. A " decisive moment " ? Possibly...but then Stan has more hair than Henri Cartier-Bresson so we may be looking at a different class of thinking.

Stan knows the rules, and knows when to break them.

Note: You can now do Stanthinking2 as there is a new Leica Q2 with even more megapixels.