Stealth Photography

This week has been fantastically busy, so I have a lot of fun updates for the blog. First, let me walk you through Monday and Tuesday, which were "stealth photography" days in a mall that does not allow photography.

Stealth photography is the art of taking pictures without anyone noticing you. There are a couple different ways of secretly photographing people or places. My favorite was developed by the guy on the left. His name is Henri Carti-Bresson, and he is considered to be one of the best street photographers to have ever lived. His technique call for a quick shooting camera (SLR or rangefinder) that has a wide angle lens. Using this camera, the photographer sets the focus at a set distance and uses a narrow aperture to keep as much of the frame in focus. The final piece is to shoot from the hip. This technique is a bit hit and miss, since the photographer can get the focus and framing wrong. The small aperture also requires a slower shutter speed, so the risk of motion blur is higher.

I tend to use a modified version of this technique. Modern cameras are faster than the ones that Bresson used. The invention of auto focus eliminates the need to pre-focus. Sensor improvements also make motion blur a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, I had to go super stealthy on Monday and Tuesday. Mall security has an eye for big cameras. I decided to avoid unwanted attention by using my cellphone camera, which is not that easy to use. My iPhone has a decent 8MP sensor, but it does not compare to the 21MP 35mm sensor that my MKII uses. There is a slight lag between pressing the picture button and the phone actually taking a picture. Finally, the shutter timing on the phone is slow enough to cause motion blur. I had to stand incredibly still in the mall interior while photographing. It sort of felt like photographing with the old style bellows cameras.

The iphone does have its benefits, namely that pretty much everyone in the mall uses camera phones to text. I was unnoticeable.