TexasGirl Photography

Last weekend was one of my favorite annual events: the Red Poppy Festival in Georgetown, TX. I always look forward to this festival for the community, the chaos, and the photography, and this year felt like a particularly good one for all three.

While street photography used to be my strongest passion, I mostly stepped away from it for the past few years. Lately, especially with my new commitment to professional work, I have felt my interest in it returning, although interest might not be the right word. I’ve always loved it, I just haven’t felt compelled to participate in it since 2018 or so.

Enter my encounter with the work and philosophy of Daido Moriyama. A couple of weeks ago I found myself reading about a popular compact digital camera that doesn’t come with a viewfinder or a hot shoe (meaning you can’t attach your own and have it really connect to the camera). The author of the review suggested that if the lack of viewfinder is a problem, just close the back of the camera and work “blind”, like Daido M. Here I immediately stopped reading and did a quick search on my laptop, because I am always keen to explore the work of photographers I’m not immediately familiar with.

I came across another article that outlined his ethos and how he chooses to work. It read a bit to me like something Lomography would say “don’t think, just shoot.” (Ok I’m not a fan of the word shoot but I get it, it’s just part of the photographic lexicon these days.) Thanks to my Dad, I have a little Canon M6; thanks to previous purchases, I have a little 35mm Canon lens that works like a dream on that camera with the aid of an adapter. I couldn’t wait to get out, ignore the viewfinder, and fire away on the shutter with wild abandon!

I wanted to use the 35mm Canon lens because it’s manual focus, and also wide enough to have excellent depth of field. I set my aperture to f11 and let the camera set the shutter speed for me (my very first time, believe it or not, choosing aperture priority mode). Working that way means the autofocus won’t betray me, and provided I mind my distance, I won’t have to worry about resetting the camera at all.

While I will admit that I found myself wishing the M6 was full frame so I could have had true 35mm focal length, I have to admit that the lens acting more telephoto wasn’t a bad thing, and yes I am dedicated to film photography with my whole heart, but y’all, I am thrilled with the results. I wasn’t always slam-dunk successful in terms of the exact scene I was going for, but considering this was an experiment and I was going straight to jpeg with the camera set in b&w mode, I am one happy woman!

The truth is I enjoyed myself so much walking around that I was probably a bit of a menace, but my enthusiasm was powered by love for the people around me and my usual desire to catch people in the gorgeous natural un-awareness that I have always sought to highlight with photography. Georgetown is a wonderful place, and the people at the festival were all a testament to how great a crowd of people can be, regardless of what the world chooses to do around us.

In terms of working without looking through a viewfinder, I found it to be a liberating experience. While I love 35mm film, I have never been a big fan of breaking the space between myself and a subject by putting a camera in front of my face; this is why I particularly love working with a medium format camera like the Hasselblad or Rolleiflex, since the waist level finder lets me look without a barrier. It seems friendlier, less invasive, even if there’s nothing less subtle than a big “old fashioned” camera that many people have assumed was recording some kind of video.

“Hip shots” have always been a part of street photography, and a dear departed photographer friend of mine who lived with ALS for the last decade or so of his life had no other way of working yet produced gorgeous photographs. So I think this might be my new thing, at least as often as I have the opportunity. Watch this space for how well it worked / didn’t work with the 35mm Nikon I also carried on the day. One of my biggest problems with photographing on the fly is forgetting to stop my feet so the whole thing is a bit of a blur. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

More of the images:

Thank you for taking a look! Next: more of these photos, but to do with cars. Daido seems to have a philosophy of volume being a good thing; I guess on any given day it all depends on how many photographs you happen to see! On Saturday the 25th, I saw a lot.