www.martins-photography just hit 10,000 hit's - thank you all! 

Just wanted to share some recent images of my beautiful daughter, all taken in natural light!

For a four year old she really knows how to model!

Canon 60D and Tamron 17-50 F/2.8 non VC

 Stranger #03

I noticed that when photographing strangers if you target a small group of people often all of them will start asking question's about why / what you're doing, from this you have the opportunity to shoot a group of individuals in a matter of minutes. Read more... 

 Stranger #04

This guy was also interested in what I was doing and for the hell of it and in good English he said "Well, you can take my photo too" so I did! Read more... 

 Stranger #05

While snooping around the side streets we came across 2 young ladies hand in hand - both drunk or seemed to be, we asked them if it was possible for a portrait and they agreed - having 2 photographers works well on a busy day and having the ability to separate and keep both occupied is a bonus.. Read more... 

 Stranger #06

While approaching a small church I noticed a guy dressed in a long coat and tweed cap sweeping up some old leaves, I told Roland I want to photograph him! Read more... 

 Stranger #07

This guy was sat with a young lady eating some pommes "German for

chips" near to the end of his lunch I asked him if I could take his picture. The lady turned around and said "We both" I said no just him! for obvious reasons! Read more... 

 Stranger #08

Nope she's not in fancy dress, this is an actual German Female Police officer! She made me smile 100 meters away and I knew I had to ask her!  Read more... 

Stranger #02

While waiting for the carnival to get going we snooped around the side streets, images of people in fancy dress was not our goal but rather images of people with character roaming the surrounding areas. While crossing the road between the floats we bumped into this guy, beer in one hand and his personnel bag in the other - looked like he was living on the streets and was stinking of beer! Roland asked him if he could take his portrait, not a word of English came out of his mouth just warum and a few other slurred words, I explained to him in German as best I could the reasons why and he agreed - after Roland took his picture he asked me to take his so I did...

Stranger #03

I noticed that when photographing strangers if you target a small group of people often all of them will start asking question's about why / what you're doing, from this you have the opportunity to shoot a group of individuals in a matter of minutes. With this particular guy his wife / girl friend was the important one - while Roland was making his shot of the lady I told him about our 100 stranger project and thought it was cool and requested that I take his shot! How could I refuse, check out that head gear! awesome to say the least, even has a built in lens! He started to laugh and could not stop - nearly every time I took a stranger shot I requested that they not smile but look direct into the lens and act normal! for some this is difficult when the camera is being pointed at them, the younger generation find they have to play around while the older like to check there hair and outfit is pleasing for the camera.. as you can see from this image he looked pretty much normal! one of my favourite's from this day :)

Stranger #01

After an hour and 30 minute drive I met up with Roland aka Rivera in the city of Münster "Germany" for what is well known as Rosenmontags part of the festive season when celebrating carnival. Our task for the day and my very first in this type of photography was to photograph strangers. I've been wanting to photograph strangers for a while, ever since coming across Markus Schwarze 's 365 day stranger project, today was that day.

This is my first upload, we spotted him a good few meters away and it was people like this guy we wanted to target, people with character, people that stood out from the crowd and this guy was one of them. This was not the first person I had approached but by this time I felt comfortable enough to ask just about anyone. I asked him in English if I could take his photo but he assumed we wanted him to take a photo of us to which I replied no, we would like to take a photo of you and as you can see he agreed. We asked him kindly if he would move backwards a little, level with a large shop window that cast a lovely yellow light and made an ideal location that acted as rim light. I rattled a number of shot's off, 6 in total and this was my favourite - after the short session we said thank you and he continued on his way and we continued on ours..

Thought she would kill me if I uploaded this but the wife actually likes it :)

Inspired by top street photographers like Rivera, Benoit.P, Paul Mezzer, Markus Schwarze , Uncommon to name a few I want to dive into the world of stranger photography. This coming Monday directed by Roland aka "Rivera" I hope to learn the subtle approach to stranger photography, Roland tells me it's not difficult as you may well think! we shall see :)

The portrait below is a simple snap of my wife, taken in natural light "my favourite" I've used this image as a basis for my work flow - I've created an action that not only speeds up my PP but also allows me to keep to a similar level of processing for each image, still not 100% happy with it but I have time to improve..

any ways, without boring you all this Monday I'm in Müster and the topic is Carnival! should be a ball and I'm really looking forward to it!

Canon 5D Mark II - Canon EF 35mm F:1.4 L | 1/60 Sec | F1.4 | ISO 320