I inadvertently created an interesting set of photographs today. I was trying out something on my GF1 and the results were pretty cool. For some time now i have been trying to improve my techniques of street photography. I've been getting better and better at shooting from the hip but the problem I always run into is getting focus right. I generally leave my camera set on auto focus. I have tried in the past to preset the focus but the results have been less than stellar. So I generally set it to autofocus and hope for the best. The results are usually 50/50.
Today, however I discovered the joy that is face detection on my little gf1. I knew it was there but I always dismissed it as a gimmick. Oh. how wrong I was. Well, partially anyway. In fairness, most of the time it is a gimmick, but when shooting blind rom the hip into a crowed street it's remarkably effective.
The result of all this is a fantastic collection of wonderful expressions, frozen in time. From a technical point of view, I'm really blown away by how well this worked. My in focus hit rate went from 50/50 to about 85/15 and it captured shots I never would have expected to get in focus. But technicalities aside, it's the expressions that make it. We never really see people like this - in mid stride or mid sentence. The results are priceless. So without further ado, enjoy this gallery of frozen faces, captured on the streets of Dublin...
