Yesterday was all about people knowing I was photographing them. Today I hit the streets of Hannover to take pictures of unsuspecting folk going about their day. Why? It's fun - and as soon as you start looking and stopping and waiting you notice things that must happen every second of every day everywhere but that normally go unnoticed as they fade into the background of the next moment. It's not just the moments that you are quick enough to capture with the camera setup just right for a decent image but just the act of waiting for things to fall into place and being rewarded every so often is good for the spirit.
Some people can't help but look cool.
Even the pigeons were on strut today...
This lady had her grove on. She was jiving along with a family of buskers and carried on her dance-walk until they were out of earshot. Luckily, she could still hear them when she shimmied along side this shoe shop and threw shapes for the customers. There was a sidestep in there for authenticity I assure you.
Kids and Balloons - simple. A Kid with great hair and 70s double denim flares, framed by a reflective glass building and a postcard sky and those balloons... - better.
This next scene was weird. The middle kush-ball/fraggle head thing was a man wearing face paint with a bird whistle in his mouth, either side were puppet-heads that looked like his. His act, which had a succession of passers-by in hysterics, was to wink and blow kisses at the girls and to growl at their boyfriends. Add in sudden movements of the box towards people trying to get by and you have a thriving business model.
Inspired by the great Zach Arias the trick for the next shot was to stand there for an uncomfortably long time, aim the camera at the building above the man, pretend to take a photo and check the back of the camera (called chimping) while in reality taking a picture of him. Rinse and repeat till you have everything in focus, nice lighting, a clear scene and a comedy pigeon in shot and bingo.
This one is for Poppy, who loves pictures of old people looking wistfully across water.