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his photograph feels timeless to me. A friend and I were out shooting late and we’d been trying to capture the atmosphere in this bar on a summer’s night in the Canal district. The trouble is, we were on our tripods and I felt
that was inhibiting me. So I took the camera off the stand and hand held. Immediately I felt more likely to get the shot I was looking for. This guy – the Holy Drinker – was nice but I decided that I wanted to have some motion to create interest both inside & outside the bar. So I set my focus point to the doorway, cranked the ISO to 1250, stopped up to f/3.2 and set the shutter to fire at a really slow 1/10th of a second. The reason for the slow slow shutter speed was simple; to capture the motion blur of the cyclist. Finally I set my Nikon to “continuous” mode so I would have been taking 2/3 images in a half second. That way, what seems like a coincidence – the Holy Drinker supping on his beer with the cyclist being perfectly placed at exactly the right moment suddenly feels like less of a coincidence.
Benjamin Arthur The British Photographer in Amsterdam.
If you are interested in having a street photography lesson or purchasing a framed or mounted fine art print of this photograph for your home, please send me an email to: benjaminarthur@gmail.com.
Britsoc Photo Lesson #4: Down the Tripod and Hand Hold www.benjaminarthur.com Page 29