Daily Inspiration #334 by Brett Price

April 6, 2012 Daily Inspiration 32

Hey Steve,

I’m an avid reader of your website. I love your reviews and especially have found some pretty great photographers through the daily inspiration posts that you feature. I thought I would try it out for myself.

I recently took a trip to New York City for a wedding and while it was great and fun to see people get married, my real excitement was to walk the streets and spend endless time shooting photos. I brought 3 cameras to shoot with for this trip: A Leica M9 and M7, as well as a Hasselblad 501cm. Digital, 35mm, & Medium format, all I would ever need! I packed up everything into my Tenba Metro II shoulder pack and carried it all with me everywhere I went, with ease.

On the Leica’s I shot with a Nokton 35mm f1.4 (A lens I love on the M9, but hate on the M7) and a Zeiss 50mm f1.5 Sonnar, a lens which I adore on either camera. I taped up the red dot and logo on each so that I could be as inconspicuous as possible and pretty much spent 3 days walking the streets of NYC shooting non-stop. While the Zeiss and Nokton suit me fine, I would love to one day own some Leica glass. I made the mistake to test out a Summilux 50 ASPH while walking through B&H and oh man, that lens takes some gorgeous pictures, hopefully one day I can afford it!

I have to say there really is something about walking around with a Leica, I love shooting with it. I may not hit every single shot (sometimes you just can’t shoot away with it if you like to shoot wide open) but it really trains you, in failure, to be a better photographer. The M9 is especially special to me for one reason alone: I’ve never owned a digital camera that gives me the same satisfaction as shooting film. I think it’s because you have to work at taking photos with it, it doesn’t just do it for you. That makes every photo more special.

Well anyways, keep up the good work, can’t wait to see what happens May 10th! Hope you like these photos! Hope you don’t mind I uploaded 5 instead of 3. If you need to narrow it down should this be posted just pick your favorites!

All of these photos are from the M9. shots from the M7 and Hasselblad you can see on my Flickr site:

www.flickr.com/photos/brettprice

Cheers

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32 Comments

  3. Really nice photos Brett.
    The mood is well captured.
    And don’t pay attention to the ones who don’t dare to submit their images (that would probaly make them ashamed…).
    A photo is a fragile mix of subjects or places, light and mood… Each amount of these ingredients has to be balanced precisely.
    No doubt you’re a good cooker 😉

    PS to Vinny & Michiel : as you guys are much better photographers, I’m EAGERLY waiting to see some of your masterpieces…

  4. This is my favorite segment of stevehuffphoto.com. I lived in NY for four years back in the 90’s and would love to go back and just walk around making photos like you did. Thanks for sharing your photos Brett.

  5. I love the 1st and 4th pictures, is the 4th pic in the back of a yellow cab?
    Great stuff and glad Steve posted your work.
    That 1st shot is very classy- well done.
    all the best Rich.

    • Yes, the 4th was our driver to the wedding from nyc to nj. thanks for the comment!

  9. Sorry to spoil that party (not really, I hope). These are about the average pics I would have taken as well when visiting NY (and I did), but would not think worthy of publishing on the net. I didn’t anyway; I was a lot more critical of my own “work”.

    • honestly, I shoot because I like it. Not for online distribution or prestige. I don’t sell my work or even try to because its not about that for me. To each his own I suppose!

      • In my humble opinion, Brett – Shooting for yourself is what makes you a “real” shooter. I feel exactly the same way. Your humility (as well as your talent) is what MAKES you a success! Look at the number of hits you have! No paycheck can amount to that – Though, I guess, one can’t spend “hits”.. In all honestly I’m just about as passionate as you are. Nothing else I do gives me such visceral pleasure as my Nex-7 and Vintage lenses!

        Do check out my photostream as well on flickr. Ken Gray. My address is listed above.

        Continued blessings & Happy Shooting!

    • The important thing is these are his own pics, exposing his own feel, capturing what he saw and doing so for himself. Maybe you & I would overlap with similar shots, but more likely, his interpretation is his own. ….just my 2₵

    • Michiel-

      There’s nothing wrong in criticising but here in this section of Steve’s site your comment seemed a bit overly negative. If Brett’s pics don’t inspire you fair enough but it’s harsh to reply and comment like you did..
      The 1st shot is class and i could see that picture being used commercially, also the location of the shot suggests Brett was pretty daring to shoot this pic.

      I love the cab shot also, i love the blur on areas of the dividing window inside the car.

      Rich

    • @Harry, I totally agree. I really want to be there right now!

      @Brett, Which lens/aperture were used to take these shots?

      • i try to shoot wide open on everything. I would imagine each photo was taken at f1.4 except for #3 where I had to stop down for the glare off the buildings.

  12. Brett,

    Great stuff and thanks for sharing. Jumped on to your Flickr page followed by your web page. Loved the Hasselblad images of Caylin. Wonderful setting and mood with the perfect camera to capture it. Again, thanks for sharing

  13. Just looking at the last three shots on my screen, they go a long way to capturing the essence of that great city!!! Excellent post. Thanks for posting, Jason.

  15. Love that third photo! Great composition. Great skin tones on the last photo! 🙂

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