Shooting from the hip

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That first one though is film right? It has that look. No LCD, I take it on that one.

To me that feels the most successful of the lot.

andredossantos said:
Thanks, and yes it was that i didn't want her to notice me. I was 3 feet away from her!

Generally, I use the back LCD to frame in the subway (not a hip shot, right?) but I guess I have less balls than Davidson in the subway in the 80's...
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gho: I have pretty much said everything i had in mind about hip shooting in this thread, so pardon me if i cannot reply to your post.
 
SimonSawSunlight said:
aaaah alright, and I thought I was some kind of 'street photographer' sometimes, silly me :D and thanks for enlightening me about my ideas of photography too, suddenly it all makes perfect sense!

seriously, I'm not going deeper into that discussion, it's most probably leading nowhere.
but yes, I'm going to continue being dishonest here and there and shoot from the hip occasionally.
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some pontificate and make up rules Simon, others do. keep those feet firmly planted in the 'do' crowd my friend.
 
Shooting from the hip is not my most succesfull strategy. Often I end up with a feeling that I've been cheating. I try to avoid it, but sometimes I'll give it a go.
But the straith and forward way is by far my favorite approach. It alway makes me feel beter about a picture when it was made the 'open' way.
 
See, I think chrismoret has hit a good point. One way of photographing is not more valid than the other... BUT, the photographer has to be comfortable with how the photo was made and if they feel good about it. Most other non-photographers won't care if it was shot from underneath your nifkin or from your eye. They'll just care if they like the photo.
 
Renzsu said:
Good luck with that, I'd rather shoot from the hip than miss the shot entirely.
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If you can´t frame the shot perfectly, what´s the use of shooting it? Just trying to find out if you got lucky?
 
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3js said:
If you can´t frame the shot perfectly, what´s the use of shooting it? Just trying to find out if you got lucky?
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You're thinking it's all about luck, but it's not.
Through practice you can start to get a feeling of what will be in the frame. The way you hold your camera combined with the familiarity of having used a certain focal length for a while can really get you a good feel of what will be in the frame and in what way. The shots that I posted before in this topic were not 'lucky' shots, I prefocused my lens, saw an opportunity and quickly took the shot when the subject was in the right place relative to me and my camera.
I'm sorry if you somehow feel this way of shooting is inferior to bringing the camera to your eye and carefully creating your composition, but when you're in the streets with a ton of people around, this is not always the best way to get your shot.
 
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3js said:
If you can´t frame the shot perfectly, what´s the use of shooting it? Just trying to find out if you got lucky?
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Well, many rangefinders don't let you frame the shot perfectly anyway. Additionally, there no luck involved. If you use the same focal length all the time, you tend to know what you are going to get anyway... even from the hip.
 
jsrockit said:
Well, many rangefinders don't let you frame the shot perfectly anyway. Additionally, there no luck involved. If you use the same focal length all the time, you tend to know what you are going to get anyway... even from the hip.
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Exactly. Thanks.
 
Renzsu said:
You're thinking it's all about luck, but it's not.
Through practice you can start to get a feeling of what will be in the frame. The way you hold your camera combined with the familiarity of having used a certain focal length for a while can really get you a good feel of what will be in the frame and in what way. The shots that I posted before in this topic were not 'lucky' shots, I prefocused my lens, saw an opportunity and quickly took the shot when the subject was in the right place relative to me and my camera.
I'm sorry if you somehow feel this way of shooting is inferior to bringing the camera to your eye and carefully creating your composition, but when you're in the streets with a ton of people around, this is not always the best way to get your shot.
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So you can frame your shots perfectly from the hip? That´s pretty good I would say. But I think most of the hip shooting community is entirely missing the point, it´s never the picture in front of you, it´s allways about you. The picture tells allways something about you, well if you shoot dull pictures, that´s the way you just are. Most of these hip shots are just poorly framed, what does that tell about the photographer? There is allways some kind of a disorder in the frame, but of course there will be moments when you just get plane lucky.... What does that tell about you?
 
This thread has had its run, its ups and downs, and interesting views expressed. Time to move on; thread closed. :)
 
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