A Nikonoholic in DC: Princesses

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Princesses

35mm: 1/400 @ f/2.8

For this entry, I would like share with you the photographs of people. I am particularly in the mood to share photos of princesses that I took during a Caribbean Carnival in Paris in the summer of 2009. Shooting people can be challenging in a normal setting because they can often sense when you are trying to take their picture and may not necessarily want one taken of them. It is events such as this one that provide such shy photographers with the opportunity to photograph people in an open setting.

It was sort of an overcast but a humid hot day in early July in Paris when I headed to "La Place de la Nation" located on the boarder of the 11th and 12th arrondissement in the city of light. Using mostly two of my principal primes, 50mm 1.8AF and the 35mm 2.0 AF, I followed the Carnival parade along Blvd Voltaire up to the metro stop Voltaire. That was a really fun day in the twilight of my years in Paris.

At an event like this where I was already quite close to the participants, my 35mm prime served as a good all around 'street lens'. It relatively fast speed (f/2.0) allowed me to isolate my subject. The lens however tends to be too soft wide open at f/2.0 so for most shots at I set the aperture value at f/2.5 and f/2.8. When I had a little more distance to work with from my subject, I shot with my 50mm (a moderate telephoto on my DX format camera). If otherwise noted, all shots were taken at ISO200.