1st Day Birmingham Street

Last Sunday I went for the first time in Birmingham. I have planned the areas to visit but while I was still on the coach I noticed a huge multicultural open market so I decided to go there and have a look. I then discovered, talking with the people there, that it was the last day of the Wholesale Market, a market that has been held for decades and that was an important trading centre for the international community. There were no other journalists or photographers, so I decided to focus my visit to Birmingham in this place since I am almost surely the only one to have a record of this event.

Initially it was very difficult to approach people. The first people I asked to have a portrait of them drily refused, but I did not wanted to give up and opt for candid pictures, so I kept on trying. After some time I started to be widely noticed and some people started to approach me because they were interested in what I was doing. So I started to talk and get information and it became easier to get the portraits because at that point it wasn't only me asking permission to strangers but instead several people were interested in my work and approached me.

I took with me two cameras, one big DSLR with a 50mm lens and my small mirrorless with a 35mm. I used the former mainly for portraits using an off camera flash that I linked with a cable and I held it in my hand, and the latter for candid pictures taken from the hip.

Here some headshots:

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I think that the main challenge is the lighting. I tried to use a flash in order to separate the subject from the background and I decided to use it off camera. The portraits taken without the flash have a very bad lighting: dark subject and bright background... Consequently I believe that in order to get the effect that I desire I definitely need to use the flash but I am not sure that the choice to use it off camera was the best, so next time I'll try to keep it on my camera.

Some candid pictures:

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