When I was in Oslo early June, I tried to spend as much time as possible in the streets taking photos. For me, as I was there for work, it meant mainly in the morning on my way to the office. Which was good: the light was great. High enough to go between buildings, but not above them.
There is a scene in the animated series Archer where everybody is stuck in the elevator. Krieger, the mad scientist, is holding a Thermos bottle. Someone asks him: is that soup in there? And he answers in an enigmatic way: define “soup”.
I saw him running across the street in the corner of my eye. I just had time to lift the camera, match his speed, focus, and click. I was using the 28mm so I was very close.
I discussed wanting but failing to start a project lately. My conclusion was that if you can’t find an obvious project, one way of starting could be to choose a technology, a constraint, or a theme, then go out and take photos to see where it goes.
I was in Oslo lately (for work). So I decided to put that conclusion into practice. I decided:
Not to shoot monochrome because it’s currently my comfort zone.
Shoot only streets, because landscapes are a safe zone for me and I want to learn street (human activity) photography.
When you’re in Paris, you have to do stereotypical things sometimes. One morning, we were waiting for the Photography museum to open for a Dennis Morris exhibition. We were early, so we did what you’re supposed to do.
This is one of the first monochrome photos I made back in 2006. It was taken at Dunnottar, a fortress on a rock in Northern Scotland. I wanted to learn digital monochrome at a time when it wasn’t that common (or it was just desaturation and super flat).