Just Breathe On Medium Street

Electric fusion of Mexican Latino rhythms, tacos, tiny magical alebrije dogs and frogs, carved from wood and whimsically painted. Families in flag capes, crowns and cowboy boots and hats. The red, green and white of the Mexican flag was everywhere and Chicago’s first El Grito Mexican Independence Day Celebration in Grant Park was a multi-sensory, joyous event set on a clear, warm September day.

What a gift to a street photographer! Such a celebration of culture and history with a camera to record the dancing, the colors, the textures and the details. Shooting medium format street photography at this event, right in my own back yard, I thread my way through the celebrants, transported by the rhythms, and document the moment.

This beautiful setting is probably the perfect time to talk about how to cope when the momentum gets messed up. Generally, my settings are all where I like them, where I am comfortable. As I look down occasionally, as I do, to check my work and make sure I’m getting the desired look in the frames, something is awry. Although most of the day, everything looks good, at some point my settings got changed and nothing on my setting screen looks familiar. Frustration and impatience rears its head…..

It wasn’t my proudest moment. I lost the flow. I lost my cool. I tried different settings. None of them worked. I went through a bunch of self-criticisms and recriminations. When I first got my Fujifilm medium format camera, I would try different settings, go on a photo walk and during editing decide what I was missing. Then I would adjust my settings and repeat the process. It took several rounds till I got the combination that felt right for my style of shooting.

What I found works best for me is autofocus and auto aperture. ISO and shutter speed are left manual and they can be adjusted with the front and back dials. I usually set the shutter speed dial to 1/500s but adjust down in low light or up if photographing something that predictably moves fast like pigeons flying or a skateboarder performing tricks. I adjust the ISO to open or close my aperture. If the aperture shows a setting of f4, I adjust the ISO dial till the aperture is the number I like, generally f5.6 or f8. I use a lower ISO and bring up the light a bit in post processing. I find shooting a bit dark allows for deeper, richer color.

But not today. Standing in the very bright sun, with the music from the band blaring, as it should be, I found it hard to move through my settings and figure out what I changed. A few other settings were also out of whack. Face and Eye Detection inexplicably were turned off. I fixed things as I found them. But still I couldn’t remedy my main problem, getting the ISO, aperture and shutter speed settings the way I wanted them. Frustration became the enemy of creativity.

It was hot out, but I was the one that was getting steamed. Sigh. What I should have done was find a shady, quiet spot and figured it out while I was at the festival. I’m never happy leaving a good shooting location before I’m done.

So this beautiful day reinforced the idea that photography is a lesson in patience, and sometimes Going with the Flow means stopping to sit down, breathe, and relax. Cameras can be complicated, quirky and sometimes uncooperative. We need to abide the adversity, slow down, knowing that it will be alright. Just Breathe. Next time on Medium Street, there will be a new set of challenges. And we will be ready to deal with them.