[Photo walk] Along Harbour Esplanade, Docklands #4

Since May this year, pretty much all the photos I’ve taken have been with the TTArtisan AF 27mm F2.8 (40mm full-frame equivalent) lens. And while this isn’t the a super high-quality lens, I’ve really enjoyed using it.

So when the TTArtisan AF 56mm F1.8 (85mm full-frame equivalent) lens went on sale a couple of weeks ago, I went ahead and bought it :)

Photo of a black camera lens. (Source)

Here are some of the photos I took during the only photo walk I’ve managed to take since buying this lens.

A bunch of these are repeats from earlier photo walks, but that’s fine because the main point of this walk was to practice using the new lens and composing all my shots at a fixed, 85mm focal length.

Good choice of corner furniture on the top floor

Black-and-white photo of a multi-storey office building with a sharp corner at one end. On the very top floor there is a small drinks table/trolley placed in the very corner of the building.

Five layers of buildings across three streets in one photo

A photo showing the gap between two tall-ish buildings. Behind the building on the left are four other building, each one getting successively taller.

Lovely meeting rooms in the NAB Building at 800 Bourke Street

Photo of a section of a colourful office building that’s jutting out from the main building. This multi-storey section, which itself is two storeys above ground level, has floor-to-ceiling windows on all three sides. Through the windows you can make out office tables and chairs arranged inside the rooms.

Cow Up a Tree — John Kelly (2000)

Photo looking up at a large bronze sculpture of a black-and-white square-ish cow with a tiny head that is stuck, upside-down, on top of a bare tree.

Reflections of a photographer on Harbour Esplanade

Photo of a large, convex, traffic safety mirror installed on a pole next to a construction site along a wide esplanade. The photographer has captured his own distorted reflection in this mirror.

Photographer in a convex traffic safety mirror on Harbour Esplanade

Close-up photo of a large, convex, traffic safety mirror installed on a pole next to a construction site along a wide esplanade. The photographer has captured his own distorted reflection in this mirror.

Top-floor mini balcony at the Federal Court of Australia building in Melbourne

Photo looking up at the top of a tall, light-brown and slate-grey building. A small balcony is jutting out from the top floor. The building is otherwise completely flat on this side.

A drastically different way of looking

40mm is my favourite focal length, so switching suddenly to 85mm was quite the challenge!

This difference in focal lengths is large enough that you can’t just “take a few steps backwards” to successfully capture the 40mm-friendly composition that initially popped into your head.

A fact that my creative brain completely forgot when I saw a woman walking two adorable dogs on my photo walk and, without thinking, I asked if I could take their photo. The woman said “yes” the instant the rational part of my brain remembered that I was too close to get an even halfway-decent shot with the lens I had on. *sigh*

I took the photo anyway, of course, but I barely even managed to get one of the two dogs in frame :) Oh well. At least that’s not a lesson I’ll forget anytime soon!

Photo of two small dogs on a split-leash, with one dog out of focus and the dog that is in focus facing the dog walker so you can only see the back of its head.

It’ll take a few more photo walks before I get the hang of this focal length. Especially when it comes to taking photos of people and animals.

The 85mm focal length is particularly good for shooting portraits because you can (a) isolate your subject in the frame and (b) get a nice blurry background behind them if you use an open enough aperture. This lens is capable of taking great portrait shots, it’s just me that needs the practice :)

So here’s to more photo walks and many more opportunities to use this focal length in the coming weeks and months.

[Photo walk] Southbank, Melbourne (85mm only)

This is my second week of shooting at only 85mm (which is 55mm on my mirrorless, APS-C camera). It was super hot (approaching 32 degrees) when I went out to take these photos, which is why I took a handful.

Cool AF backpacker chilling in the sun

Photo of a middle-aged, dark-skinned man with silver-grey hair styled into a short, soft mohawk with buzz-cut sides. The man is sitting on a long bench next to a tall hedge in an urban park. He is leaning forward, elbows rested on thighs, as he reads a newspaper that he is holding in his hands. On the ground next to him is a large, professional hiking backpack that is full with his gear.

Sir Charles Hotham Hotel building

Photo of the round, domed tower at the corner of a dilapidated, four storey, 111 year old building. The pale yellow paint on this building is cracked and peeling. Long-since faded paint on the side the building reads, “Sir Charles Hotham Hotel”.

Sweep rowing training on the Yarra River

Photo of four sweep rowers (in which each person holds only one oar with both hands) and their coxswain rowing along an urban river. Riding on a motorboat alongside them with a megaphone in their hand is (presumably) their trainer.

Crown Towers Melbourne, as seen through The Guardians artwork

Photo of the top of the Crown Towers building seen through a large ceramic ring that is part of some artwork on the ground floor outside. The artwork in question is ‘The Guardians’ (2000) by local artist Simon Rigg.

Office corners on a Friday afternoon

Close-up photo of the corner of an office building, with two of the floors in frame. On one floor there are tables and chairs set along the windows. On the other floor is an empty, darkened corner office with a large Dyson air purifier visible through the window.

This was the last formal step in my two-and-a-half-month long ‘one focal length at a time’ exercise. Woohoo!

Next week I’ll repeat shooting at only 40mm. If I’m still happy with that focal length, then the first pancake prime lens I get will be a 40mm one. This’ll be great for street, travel, and everyday photography. Especially since it’ll make my camera kit small enough to carry around with me pretty much everywhere I go.

And then I sit and wait till I get a get a good deal on a new (or used) Fujifilm XF 27mm F2.8 R WR lens. Or I just get the TTArtisan AF 27mm F2.8 third-party lens for my Fujifilm camera. I guess we’ll see how things go.

[Photo walk] Collins Street, Melbourne #3 (85mm only)

We’re on the final stage of my ‘one focal length at a time’ exercise. That means this fortnight I am shooting only at 85mm (which is 55mm on my mirrorless, APS-C camera).

I like shooting at 85mm because part of what I enjoy doing is capturing specific aspects of the world around me, and this focal length lets me zoom in to isolate the thing I want to highlight.

In this particular photo walk I focused on both people and a building details. The advantage of this focal length, of course, is that you can take photos of people from further away without ‘bruising the scene’ (ie without them noticing you and stopping doing whatever interesting thing they were doing that made you want to take their photo in the first place). Is taking photos like this somewhat voyeuristic? Yes, it is. But as long as you’re not being a creep or an asshole about it, I think it’s okay. I, for example, only take photos of people doing things that I wouldn’t mind being photographed doing myself. Most of the time this is just standing around in a public place.

Here are the photos I took.

Early dinner while stuck in traffic on Collins Street, Docklands

Photo of a man wearing a yellow high visibility vest and an orange turban sitting the the drivers seat of a large, white panel (delivery) van. The van is stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic and so the man is using a fork to eat something out of a glass storage bowl on his lap.

Grey building reflecting a grey sky

Photo looking up to the top of a very tall, blue-glass covered building. Because the sky is grey and overcast, however, the windows are looking blue-grey instead. The building has rounded edges and two large curves along its length, making it look like a fancy water bottle.

Taking the time to smoke before heading into Southern Cross Railway Station

Photo of a man with pale blonde hair and a long, white beard sitting on a concrete bench outside on the footpath outside a large building. The man, who is wearing dark clothes and shoes, is holding a cigarette up in his right hand. In the background a woman is walking down the footpath.

Tram line inspectors heading to a job along Collins Street

Photo of two people in safety work wear (blue pants with reflective stripes, orange high visibility top with reflective stripes, white hard hats, and safety glasses) standing on top of a retracted scissor lift that’s been built on to the back a large truck. The truck is white and is covered in a Yarra Trams decal. The truck has just crossed an intersection and is proceeding along a tram track running down the centre of a road.

Triple denim, waiting on a bench

Photo of a young woman wearing blue denim jeans, a grey denim jacket, and a grey denim cap sitting on a long wooden bench outside a large building. She has a metal water bottle lying next to her. She is wearing wireless earbuds and is looking down at her phone.

It’s been a long week

Photo of a man wearing blue pants, yellow hoodie, and grey cloth cap who is sitting on a long wooden bench outside a large building. The man has a duffel back by his side and is leaning forward, head down and elbows on his thighs, looking very tired.

Heading out for Friday evening social event

Photo of four people waiting at the pedestrian crossing at an urban intersection. The two men are dressed in dark pants and untucked casual, button-up shirts. One woman is in a long, checkered dress in shades of brown. The other woman stands out because she is in a shorter, frilly, flower-patterned, blue dress.

Waiting for someone while while wearing the Melbourne uniform

Photo of a woman wearing the Melbourne uniform: black boots, black pants, black shirt, and black puffer jacket. The woman is looking down at her phone while waiting outside the steps leading up to an office building.

Keeping physiotherapists employed

Photo of a young man wearing sneakers, blue jeans, and a cream coloured t-shirt sitting on a large, black-painted concrete block outside a building complex. The man is hunched over as he looks at the smartphone he is holding in his hand.

Happy couple heading out for an evening in Melbourne

A woman and a man are walking down a footpath in a city centre with their arms on each others’ backs. They are wearing matching rings on their right ring fingers. In the background of the photo is a flower shop on the wide sidewalk.

Tourists checking out Melbourne's office-building architecture

Photo of a couple standing on the other side of the road from the photographer. They have their arms around each other and are looking up at the top of a building across the street from them. A green-and-white tram is about to cross in front of them.

Stained glass window of the 'Gothic Bank' in Melbourne

Photo of a round stained glass window with an interior seven-petal shape carved out of brownstone. The front façade and spire of this ornate, gothic-revival style, brownstone building is being seen through a gap in the trees across the street.

Front façade of the 'Gothic Bank' in Melbourne

Photo of the front façade and spire of an ornate, gothic-revival style, brownstone building that is being seen through a gap in the trees across the street. The year 1890 is carved into a shield at the top of the central spire.

Taking a selfie in front of Flinders Street Station in Melbourne

Photo of a man and a woman standing in the crowd in front of the steps of a train station. The man has is hand raised as if he has just taken a selfie of the two of them.

Next week I’ll continue shooting at 85mm, and after that I’ll probably repeat a couple of earlier focal lengths.

Since I’m doing all this to potentially buy myself a compact prime lens in this year’s Boxing Day sales, I think I’ll spend the last two weeks before Christmas back at 27mm and 40mm. Those are the two focal lengths at which Fujifilm sells compact primes.

Happily, I really enjoyed shooting at those focal lengths. So if I am going to buy one of those lenses this year – assuming the sale price is good enough or I can get them second-hand – then I should repeat those two to see which one I should go for first.