25 Mar 2017

Photoproject: 100 visits to Seri Huamark Market (days 81-90)

After returning to the Lumix 12-35mm the last 10 days, I wanted to keep using that same lens for a while longer so I kept it attached to my camera for another 10 days, which will make it the most used lens in this project alongside the prime PanaLeica 15mm (40 days each), both covering a wide/normal field of view, which I guess is totally natural in a project of this matter, as street photography (specially in tight spaces such as this market) has traditionally favored this perspective the most.

Day 81, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 81b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
We are in the last stretches of the project, yet there are still things that have just happened to me for the first time since embarking on it. One such thing was me chasing people rather than waiting for them: one day I saw someone with a lot of potential for a very interesting image and, instead of waiting for that person to come into "my zone" (as that might never happen), I went discreetly after her trying to get lucky and get a chance, but in the end that did not happen and no interesting image was captured of her, but there were other scenes that grabbed my attention along the way, so all was not lost.

Day 82, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82g, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 82h, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
I mentioned in the last post that my motivation had been fading in the last weeks, and that I was fighting to bring back and renew my compromise and joy to finish the project on a high note; those things have, luckily, come back slowly for I have been fighting with my own dissatisfaction to keep myself engaged and happy, so I consider that as a victory, all consequence of perseverance.

Day 83, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 83b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 83c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 83d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 83e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
I have been shooting more at full manual settings (including manual ISO), and that has been a very interesting experience to say the least, for my images have turned out sometimes less technically proficient but, on the other hand, they might have gained a bit of character in return. However it is, it's important to be able to control all tools manually and understand a camera inside out to be able to use it to its full potential and not miss any shots due to lack of knowledge or experience.

Day 84, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84g, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84h, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 84i, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Something that started a few weeks ago has continued and has probably intensified as days passed: I have become very picky about the days and specially the weather when I go to the market; furthermore I'm now much faster while at the market, since I know the place so well that searching time has decreased significantly and I can work around it more diligently.

Day 85, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 85b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 85c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Many sellers know about my project and have started asking me every time the see me around: "how many days today?" They have also been asking me where I have been whenever I have been absent for a few days (such as during my holidays or in long weekends outside of the city), and that has become a new bond between me, them, and the place itself.

Day 86, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 86b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 86c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 86d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 86e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 86f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 86g, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
It has become a habit to pre-visualise and create mental images in advance, waiting for the scene to complete itself in front of me, but many times it does not happen or it develops in unexpected ways, which is always surprising and brings a bit of necessary unpredictability and discovery to the game. Street photography is all about studying the spontaneous flows of places and people, and grabbing your best chances out of them, not about taming subjects to fit pre-established criteria, so it's always exciting to walk this narrow line between pre-visualisation and unpredictability.

Day 87, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 87b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 87c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Surprisingly, the scenes that I have tried to create but that, for one reason or another, haven't worked out, stay with me the longest and never let me go; for that reason, every time I go back to the market I check those corners out instinctively to see if I find a difference that can make it work this time. Unfortunately, and talking from my own personal experience, the world travels faster that one's thoughts so, in most occasions, if something doesn't work the first time, it won't ever do (although that might not be the same for others, I'm just saying what has and has not worked for me).

Day 88, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 88b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 88c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 88d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
In my last visits, whenever I found one scene, I worked it and, once satisfied with the results, left the market altogether to go back home rather than staying there longer to find other things to shoot, which has reduced the average length of my visits.

Day 89, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 89b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 89c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 89d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 89e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
The number of shots I grabbed the last 10 days was 979 (ranging between 22 and 233), among the highest, proving that the more I have been at the market, the more I have shot (and not the other way around). In total, I skipped 18 days, which means it took me almost a month to complete just 10 days, proof enough that I have become too picky with the conditions I want in each of my visits, for better or worse. There is only one more chapter to be written, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it (if happy, sad or perhaps relieved), but there is no denying that, at least, I'm about to accomplish the main goal that I set at the beginning of the project: being perseverant and being committed enough to bring it to an end, and that alone makes me very proud.

Day 90, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 90b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 90c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm

11 Mar 2017

Photoproject: 100 visits to Seri Huamark Market (days 71-80)

After 20 days shooting with the tiny PanaLeica 15mm I was ready for a change, so I resorted back to my workaround zoom lens, the compact and versatile Lumix 12-35, not only the lens that I have had the longest time (I bought it along my first micro 4/3 camera, close to 4 years ago) but also the one with which I have taken the highest number of pictures so far, which clearly speaks of my bond with this lens and how comfortable I feel shooting with it.

Day 71, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71g, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71h, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 71i, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Another first-time happened, and I'm still unsure to this day about the meaning of it: someone took pictures of me with their phone while I was shooting them. There was no chance of conversation and the expression was quite indecipherable, it could as well have been curiosity as anger or threat. I just discreetly stopped taking pictures at that place and moved ahead to another spot, and that was the end of it.

Day 72, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 72b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 72bc GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 72d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 72e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
One trend has been slowly developing in the last weeks and has become very apparent to me lately: I don't enjoy visiting the market when the light is not good anymore, overcast days keep me off the project and therefore I have ended up skipping more and more days as weeks passed when the light is not good as I see the end of the road approaching for the first time and I wanna make the best of every visit.

Day 73, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 73b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 73c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 73d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 73e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 73f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Another first happened during these last 10 days, and one I would have liked not to suffer, but that I guess is kind of inevitable from time to time: I filled the SD card of my camera while shooting and thus I missed some shots while changing cards. Even after so many days, I realized how important it is to check everything daily and keep the routines to avoid missteps, as small as they might be.

Day 74, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 74b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 74c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 74d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 74e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 74f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Some days I definitely felt less motivated and bored while walking around the market, with a feeling that I had seen it all already, and I'm afraid that shows in the images that I captured during those visits, a bit uninspired or repetitive, so I gladly welcomed the mid-term holidays, which meant I was going to travel abroad and be absent for 2 weeks, so I hoped this break would bring back the joy upon my return!

Day 75, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 75b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 75c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 75d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
After the 2 weeks break I was definitely refreshed, but at the same time it took me a while to get back in track, and as I started seeing the end of the project ahead I became much more selective with the captures I took in every visit.

Day 76, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 76b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
There is something I have been consciously training more and more, and that has been a slow approach to each scene, in hope of improving pre-visualization; I walked more slowly, I saw with my eyes without raising the camera, I imagined what I would like to get, and then I worked for it. This implied waiting and being patient, and it didn't always paid off, but it was a good training nonetheless (my longest wait was 30 minutes at a spot to create what I had in mind and in the end I only got 50% there).

Day 77, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 77b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 77c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 77d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 77e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 77f, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 77g, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
As my motivation started to dwindle and I felt a bit bored, excuses started to appear every now and then to avoid going, something that had not happened before, so I needed to force myself to go more than before and I needed more discipline and will power than ever to keep going.

Day 78, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 78b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Probably as a consequence of the previous point, I left the market feeling dissatisfied for the first time, as if I hadn't found anything valuable or interesting, which made me realize that I need to find the way to bring back the motivation and the sense of surprise and discovery again somehow, for there are still twenty more days ahead and I really want to try my best in each and everyone of them until the end.

Day 79, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 79b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 79c, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 79d, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day 79e, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
The total  amount of images I took in these last 10 days was 994 (46-137), a new record, passing barely the previous 10 days and just a hair short of 1000 images. Not counting the holidays, I skipped a total of 9 days, also the biggest number since the beginning of the project, so this raises some questions to myself as to how I will keep the motivation for the upcoming 20 days. Time will tell, but I'm very comitted to finish the project and, no matter what, I will find the way to do just that!

Day80, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm
Day80b, GX80 + Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm