Constrained but Wiser! 50mm Fixed Lens

So, I’ve been wondering what lens length is best to be able to capture those fleeting moments or instantaneous expressions and emotions that you see all around, and you want to capture in street photography.  I learned that it sometimes helps to constrain yourself, to see what it is possible to do with one, fixed lens length.  The constraint helped me enormously in developing a shooting vocabulary of sorts.  Working repeatedly at 50 mm, I framed with my feet rather than with the lens…

Here’s an offering for the 50 mm fixed lens assignment.

A racer in the Air Force Cycling Classic, May 31, 2009. These cyclists raced 100 km on a tight circuit around four blocks in the heart of urban Arlington.

Channeling Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British photographer whose work is characterized as documentary, intimate, social critique, anthropological, and satirical. Martin Parr’s Web site requires Flash.

Beauty in men’s eyes can often be a finished product, like a woman’s flawless, perfect skin, or made up face. But in the woman’s experience, beauty can be work, and like a garden, requires ongoing cultivation. Brows, moustaches and other facial hair are like garden weeds on a woman’s face — unwanted, often chemically treated, or physically pulled out.

Here’s my offering done in the style of Martin Parr:

Working Beauty

Learn more about Martin Parr from Wikipedia.