P & P -Public Events, Public Spaces - Exercise 6 -An organised event

For a planned trip to Brugge I've heard much about the markets held in Markt square on a Wednesday. The market planned was a food market so I was expecting much colour, many people moving around.

Unfortunately the weather on the day was heavy rain and whilst I'm happy taking images in the rain I know that umbrellas can be a problem sometimes hiding faces. Some photographers have managed to take some excellent images of people with umbrellas where the umbrellas were the subject in the image.

I've used a full frame camera that has water seals plus a short tele-zoom range lens with a range of 28-105mm which is at its shortest quite wide and has enough reach to bring me into the action where required.

I was expecting good variation in colour and that even with my flashes, the weather and stalls would have far greater interest to the shoppers than myself taking images of them

Image 1

 A single person at this stall waiting floor the stall holder to bag her goods. I like the colours in this image. I've cropped from the top as a building in the background drew attention away from the shopper I wanted to make the subject. This was taken at a focal length of 52mm


Image 2

3 people queue and the first is taking out his money to pay for his goods as the stall holder engages him in conversation. The 3 people in the right of the frame in their wet weather clothing with hoods on explain what the weather was doing at this time. Again I've cropped slightly from the top to remove the grey and uninteresting sky. This was taken at a focal length of 34mm


Image 3

The colours within this image are very warm and in contrast with the cold wet weather. This scene struck me in addition the cosiness of the stall but the 2 old ladies in contrasting jackets but traditional see through waterproof head dresses. This was taken at a focal length of 46 mm

Image 4

Much to explore with the eye and perhaps a bit too busy with the building in the background but it does suggest with its Gothic design that its not a location in the UK. I've cropped out the stalls either side of the central one. This was taken at a focal length of 28 mm. It seemed odd that the transaction took place at one end of the stall rather than in the middle, clearly where the item of interest was selected from


Image 5

See how the bright yellow on the right contrasts with the aluminium of the cookers on the right. I wasn't party to the joke but all 4 main subjects are enjoying a laugh or a smile. What strikes me in this image and you may not see it straight away is the man bent over at an odd height. This was taken at a focal length of 28 mm.


Image 6

People are more interested in the hot food than the flowers and plants on a cold and wet days. Unlike my earlier images which appear to show the market as quiet when it was in fact busy this image does more to reflect the number of people. Probably the weakest of the images here but it was interesting to see that moving positions can male people less or more dominant in an image and that it may not always be reflective of what was reality. This was taken at a focal length of 28 mm.

Exercise Learning

a) I discovered that the more I am at ease with having a camera and taking images the more at ease people are of me. The stallholders ignored more in the most part, where they didn't they seemed pleased and smiled mostly after the picture was taken. I suppose there could be many reasons for this but I think it may be because it will mean that somewhere in an image there will be their stall as the subject

b) A focal length of around 50mm allowed me to be more picky of what I captured in the frame and that wide angles could be more involving of the scene but less of people's expressions unless you got in very close. As I found in an earlier exercise, close-ups of people with wide angle lenses requires a level of intimacy between the lens and the subject being so close

c) Where an event of some sort is taking place, I think the people around it are far more interested in what they are doing, particularly when its wet and they want to simply do what they planned and get back home. From my perspective  there was less chance of expression to be found as people moved quickly but also where they had very little interest in me and I could do what I wanted.