Using the Film Simulations on The Fujifilm x100v
I haven’t been getting out a lot lately to take pictures because of this heat we've been having, but the past few days haven't been that bad so I decided to grab my camera and see if anything caught my interest. I haven't been into street photography as much as when I first started photography back in 2005, but that is a post for another day.
I decided to use the Classic Chrome simulation. I did have the x100v last year but then I sold it (stupid decision) and now I have it again. I decided to shoot just in jpeg which I haven't done in about 15 years. I just like having the control over my images to make any changes that I want. In the picture above I did do lift the shadows just a bit to see how well the jpegs held up and I think they held up pretty well. Click the arrow to see the original. I didn't make any drastic changes, hardly anything really. To be honest, I was afraid to do too much to a JPEG, but I think it looks okay.It looks like those hideous “outdoor dining” wooden shack things are here to stay, but at least some places are trying to make them not look like such eyesores. The flowers and the cutout pattern made it look a little bit more interesting.Chinatown, NYC
One of the reasons that I’m starting to not really love street photography anymore is that I hate having to be sneaky. Depending on where you are in the world, it isn’t illegal. You’re not doing anything wrong in general. It’s just that lately there has been such a change in both people and photographers, or should I say “photographers” (again, a post for another day) that it’s just not fun anymore. I don’t mind from behind shots, but I don’t like all of my pictures to be that way, although I kind of like this one. I was walking when I took the picture or else I would have framed it differently and definitely not cut off their feet from the frame.
The first picture is definitely my favorite.NYC, July 2022
This picture is my favorite one of the day. Maybe of the past few times that I’ve gone out. Street photography is one of the easiest types of photography to try when you’re first starting out because you don’t need to try and find someone to model for you like in portrait photography, and you don’t need to be in nature like for landscape photography. You can do street photography anywhere in the world from the moment you step outside your door, whether you’re in a big city or a small town. For that reason, it’s also easy to fall back into when you’re not really feeling inspired to go out and photograph anything. I liked the arches above the windows and I would have been happy to have a shot of just that, even without anyone in the frame. However, this person walked by and I thought it would be cool if I could take a picture of them just as they crossed the center window. Their umbrella (to block out the hot sun) made the picture in my opinion. As is the usual these days, they weren’t paying attention to where they were walking because they were too busy looking at their phone.Lower East Side, NYC, July 2022
I’m not a fan of graffiti, one of the many reasons I don’t like living in NYC (or big cities in general) but sometimes you just want to take a picture of something without any particular reason.Shooting in Classic Chrome in JPEG was fun for an experiment, but I’m going to go back to shooting in Provia and in RAW. Back when I first had the x100v I used to shoot RAW in Eterna. (When you import the photos into Lightroom you have the option to use one of Fujifilm’s other film simulations or keep it in the simulation you originally photographed the scene.) I know a lot of people love Eterna but I don’t really like muted colors. I personally like how everything looks in the standard Provia with just a bit of color correction in Lightroom. Like most photographers I’m not a fan of editing. It was for that reason that I decided to shoot in JPEG for this photo walk, but even though I don’t do a ton of editing to my photos, I still like the control that shooting in RAW provides.