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Covent Garden in Colour
On yet another bitterly cold London day, I decided to go back to Covent Garden and take some colour shots of the street entertainers. All of the usual suspects were out in force; the Golden Man with the Bike, the Silver Fairy Woman and several others. They all basically stand still until the crowd gives them money, and then they perform a certain action. For example, the bike man rings his bell and changes position, while the Fairy Woman waves her wand and blows a kiss.
Unusually a couple of them broke off their routine and waved away my attempts at photographing them, so I was left with the Golden Man as the most willing subject. Here are the best 3 shots from the 36 Kodak EBX 100 frames that I took, all using my Tamron 75-300mm lens at a wide-open aperture…
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Covent Garden Colour #1 | Covent Garden Colour #2 | Covent Garden Colour #3 |
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#1 Sue
These are just plain gorgeous. When I visited London in 1992, I didn't get a chance to see Covent Garden. One of these years I'll go back. I have started scanning my prints from that time period, and will be posting some of them on My Digital Pictures which I've been neglecting.
4:24 am - Thursday, March 6, 2003
#2 Sean
The second one is a great portrait Mark. Nice detail in the face, great background blur and nice color. I've got a street shot roll that I need to develop this weekend myself. Hopefully I'll get them posted next week.
6:38 am - Thursday, March 6, 2003
#3 ConnieC
I remember seeing this on WebAperture... which is on the blink right now... was scouring around looking for sites and came upon this one. Good luck, Mark... hope it takes off for you.
3:54 am - Sunday, March 23, 2003
#4 Mark Goldstein
Is WebAperture offline because it's exceeded its bandwidth?! This is what I get when trying to visit:
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
3:30 pm - Sunday, March 23, 2003
#5 Brian read
I feel that Covent Garden portraits could have been lifted a bit more with a splash of flash
3:38 pm - Saturday, April 12, 2003
#6 Mark Goldstein
Hi Brian. Good point, but difficult to do when you're standing 10-20 feet away using the long end of a 75-300mm zoom! I guess the alternative is to use a shorter lens and then use flash, but I'm not that confident (yet).
3:44 pm - Saturday, April 12, 2003
#7 Brian read
If you can hold the zoom that steady to achieve the results that you have the flash on top will not impede the sharpness of the photo will probably enhance it even more
10:32 pm - Saturday, April 26, 2003
#8 Mark Goldstein
True...but would the range of the flash be long enough to reach the performer? I'll have to check the manual for my flashgun
The main downside to using flash that I can think of is drawing attention to yourself, especially in a busy public place like Covent Garden. I prefer to try and remain as inconspicuous as possible!
11:03 pm - Saturday, April 26, 2003