“Shoot randomly” in Melbourne / 墨尔本随手拍

On December 8, 2015 by rick0530 With 2 Comments - Leica M, Street Photography, Travel/在路上

Leica M240 with Leica 35mm Summilux F1.4 ASPH

September this year, 4 days 3 nights at Melbourne.

I think I have been talking about travel light a few times in my blog, but this time for real. I just carried two cameras and two lens attached (M240 + 35mm Summilux and M240P + 50mm Noctilux)， the lightness and inspirations would just fall into every moment and every picture I took.

Melbourne, Vic.

I normally would upload photos to my flick page after my blog post been done. I would like to do the same this time, and this is why my flickr page hasn’t been updated for a while. This could help/force me to write this blog, and keep my site updated.

Melbourne, Vic.

To be honest, I have been lost about my blog for a while, I don’t know what to write or I don’t want to write anything. When I review last few posts this morning, I feel like my blog just like a five years old’s dairy. But I told myself it is Okay to be random, or to be nothing.

Melbourne, Vic.

So, if you fund my writing for this post is worthless to read, then you can just look at the photos. But I will keep writing some non-sense for this post, because both of my current feelings or my thoughts.

Melbourne, Vic.

When the time comes to the year-end, I have a little bit paranoid about my photography. One of the most important reason/review I have for myself, it’s I haven’t been satisfied for my improvements on my street photography. Especially with really low production of my photos after this September. I don’t know if some people have the same feelings as me, the people have really high standard about themselves just like me.

Melbourne, Vic.

Even I am not happy about my quantity of photos I had produced lately this year, but I do feel happy about one thing – I started to take random shots. The randoms shots, well, I don’t know how to describe in words about the randomness, but you will find out for my coming posts in this blog. Or you might already find it in this post, I didn’t organize those photos in a order, I mean just the order of file names if I really need to tell.

Melbourne, Vic.

When I started my interest in street photography, I did set my goals every now and then. I am this type of people, it might related to my engineering education background or the way I grow up. Every month, I would review my photos, take some notes and set a goal for next month. I would do the same thing every quarter and yearly as well. This method makes my street photography journey went well for past two and half years. But I feel the growing been stuck some point at this year.

Melbourne, Vic.

I was really panicking when I first noticed that, I feel so bad about my ability, and for a while I doubting myself and my ability a lot. But this kind of bad feeling went away when I start to shoot photos randomly or I called it random-shoot.

Melbourne, Vic.

This kind of “shoot randomly” does not means I take photos for no reason, actually it is a opposite way. Like I said earlier, I normally set a goal for a month then keep shooting for this topic/goal for a month. But my way of “shoot randomly” is just take photos about the things interest my for that particular moment. More importantly, I even pay more attention to lighting, composition and exposure.

Melbourne, Vic.

There is another thing I do differently later on when I “shoot randomly”, I would left my aperture at f8, and stays there as much as possible. The photos at this post might not seems obviously, but I will share those “f8” photos in a coming blog post. I forget who said “f8 is good, and stay at f8.”, this is a good quote for street photography. If you find it interesting or useful, give it a go. 😛

Melbourne, Vic.

Melbourne is a nice place, I think it’s my favorite Australian city for street photography. There are many many interested vintage buildings from hundreds years ago, and also modern skylines would standing aside with those old ones.

Melbourne, Vic

If I can only make one suggestion of a place to go, that’s China Town in Melbourne. The reason is really really simple, there are many many nice restaurants and you can find so many different type of beautiful food and snacks! Of course, most cafes in Melbourne are good, they would make good long-blacks with fair prices. And if you are a coffee lover like me, don’t get coffee from 7-11 shops. I am not saying that there is no goodness about coffees from 7-11 shops, actually they can save you a lot of money if you drink several cups a day. But, if you are in Melbourne, why not find a cafe nearby, sit down and enjoy the coffees in a relaxed way?

Melbourne, Vic

Melbourne is multi-culture city, or I should say Melbourne has its own uniqueness, there are many different people immigrated or came from different parts of the world. So you could find a Turkish bar next to a Vietnamese noodle place, it’s a good place for food lovers, just like me. 😛 I shared a secret here, I gain half KG of weight after 4 days staying, even I have done more than 25K steps a day. LOL.