Stand on any corner, and a decent shot is liable to come along sooner or later. Serendipitous photo ops are all around us, we only need to open our eyes and pay attention to the world we live in. One other ingredient required: bring your camera along. For this assignment, hit the streets with fresh eyes and look for new and unusual things. Photograph them from new and unusual angles.
I call this one Calvin Inclined. I had a point-and-shoot camera in the bottom of my packsack but really wasn’t in the mood for taking pictures when I saw this scene just around the corner from my apartment. I almost walked by but forced myself to pause, drag out the camera and snap Calvin. I’m glad I did.
These two on a train in Osaka were just simply too good to pass up. Shooting from the hip — lap actually — I got a number of contrasts: Young versus old, male versus female, new technology versus old, probable airhead versus probably not. The elderly gentleman is reading a treatise on China-Japan relations. For me, the empty space next to the gentleman really makes the shot work. Here’s two strangers scrunched together inhabiting completely diametric solitudes.
This one I also took in Japan. Here we have a carp with a hinomaru [Japanese flag] emblazoned on its forehead. How perfect is that? After I noticed that I had less than a couple seconds to get the shot.
Another Japanese shot, this one also happened fast. As soon as I saw the scene unfolding I knew I had the wrong lens on. I quickly switched to my fisheye, composed and shot. The girls on bicycles, ignoring the direction signs, were now at the far end of the tunnel, their silhouettes shrunken by the exaggerated perspective of the ultra wide-angle optics.
All photographs were taken by Brian Grover. To browse more images visit my photo gallery here: Brian Grover Photography.
