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Speaking candidly

unposed shots of people at work, rest, and play
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DSC_5845 Bow bridge in the fall
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DSC_5845 Bow bridge in the fall

candidCentral ParkfallBethesda fountain areaBow bridge

  • After downing my foot long dogs and capturing the photo of the two girls sitting high upon the rocks over my head, I walked further into the heart of the park and decided to make a left turn and head toward the Mall, Central Parks famous gathering hole for all types of humanity down through the years. <br />
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Right at the very entrance to it this wonderful fall afternoon was a folk band filling the air with music. What made the trio such a compelling subject to capture was the location they were performing at. They chose to station themselves in front of the Olmstead flower bed which leads into the Mall.<br />
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Marvelous as the background was however, it was actually a tad too busy. I needed to soften it up a bit to let the group stand out. And so I decided to pull out my trusty old 85mm nikkor. 20 years old at least while it doesn't have auto focus, it does have a maximum aperture of F2. which I put here to very good use.
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  • DSC_5845 Bow bridge in the fall
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  • I've said this many times before, when I go out people hunting I just love taking along my old 135mm Nikon telephoto with me. This 20+ year old, budget series E lens with it's F2.8 maximum aperture, is positively minuscule in size compared the same type lens available today. It can fit in my shirt pocket if one of my many small camera bags I like to use on days like this is already full. Try doing that with a modern 135mm f2.8. And it's a full frame 135mm to boot!!<br />
<br />
 The catch, of course being over 20yrs old, it's manual focus. This makes capturing sharp shots of moving subjects like this kind of problematic. But the extreme challenge can certainly be worth it at times (and fun testing your limits). Using it on a cropped sensor camera like my D300 turns it into a 200mm f2.8 (that fits in the palm of your hand!) This gives me the ability to isolate someone in a crowd from a distance and blur out everything around them. Quite useful in this instance. <br />
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Combining all that with editing this shot in Silver Efex 2, the best black and white editing software I've ever used, gave me so many options  to make this image look just the way I wanted it to. Here I used the option to make this shot look like it was captured on Agfa APX pro 100 film, and that finishing touch made this shot complete.
  • DSC_5927 admiring the fall colors
  • master craftsman
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