The Story Behind the Photo

March 2025: Street Photography -Slow Shutter

Eric Randall

Other than waterfalls and raindrops I've never tried to shoot slow shutter.  No panning, intentional blur, nothing like that.  It was an assignment that I didn't really have a clue on, but I held the email reminder in my inbox, and kept thinking about it.  I just happened to have my camera with me that day while at work.  Was going to do a couple headshots for some friends ID badges.

I walked down to the market to hunt down some lunch.  I always walk by that market entrance area because of the great color and crazy stuff on the walls (right before you go down to Ghost Alley Espresso, and then the gum wall).  Then it hit me what I needed to try.  All the people walking gave me the idea.  I just needed it to thin out a bit, and use the stairs as a focal point.  Fortunately for me I'd swapped the 85mm from my z7ii with a Sigma 24mm F1.4.  Way too tight for an 85mm.  I pushed myself into the wall to give myself some room, dialed in some settings, and started taking a few shots.  ISO 64/24mm/F14 were the settings.  That lens won't stop down any further so the slowest shutter I could get was 1/6 sec of a second, while maintaining exposure.  Ended up working out great as any slower was a little too blurry.  I got enough to work with, and that was good, because the rain came in a big way.

I got home and zeroed in on a few.  I used Lightroom with NIK plugins.  See the original color image for reference below.  It looked cool, but this stuff just demands B&W in my opinion.  Initial conversion looked too clean, so I decided to go the gritty route with scratches, spots, light leaks, and more contrast. The first final image (also below) was high contrast, and did a really good job of hiding the second person at the top of the stairs AND I got rid of the garbage can in the bottom left corner (added nothing for this image).  Then I realized right before submitting that my aspect ratio wasn't 3:2.  Fearing the disqualification hammer, I did a quick and dirty re-edit, and ended up changing my mind on the high contrast.  That preserved the wall details better.  Looking at it right now, I see so many things I would experiment with, or do differently.  Always learning :)