Taking it to the Streets

I spent the weekend at the Berliner Hafenfest doing instant (almost) informal portraits for 3€.

I set up a small studio flash connected wirelessly to the camera via a radio trigger.

The camera was wirelessly connected to a laptop via a router (my camera has wi-fi capacity) and to complete the chain the computer was connected to a small Canon Selphy dye sublimation printer.

It was more a piece of performance art than a serious effort to make portraits, but that’s ok because I was there as part of an art group called the Brücken-Kunst.

Essentially we were there to engage with the public and to engage the public in the collaborative effort of making a rubbing/drawing/photo so that the process becomes a little more transparent.

The printer is not mine and was donated for the day by a member of the group, but the beautiful prints it produced made me want one. However, the prints, which are postcard size, cost around 40 cents per piece to produce, so it would need to be used judiciously and I’m not good at being judicious when it comes to photographic prints.

I managed a few very nice portraits from the two days, of which this is one of my favorites.

50mm, f5.6, 1/125, ISO100, 80watt flash head with white umbrella