South beach nights

Night is the only time when I can shoot comfortably these summer days. Even at night --- this one was hot (87F) and humid -- the feel and the load of subtropical summer never goes away.
Shooting streets at night is tricky:
- the light is unpredictable;
- exposure error is rather a norm;
- bracketing rarely helps;
- focusing is unreliable, both manual or AF,
and despite of all of this I love the view of night-time pictures and how people open to the simple emotions in the dark. Again, Satursday's South Beach was packed with people, celebrating life and I had my glimpse of it. Here another second for you:

Bayfront Park

This Monday at Bayfront park during lunch break with Olympus Stylus Epic/Ilford HP5+

On Joan Colom

Joan Colom is Spanish (Catalan) photographer from Barcelona.
Born in 1921, he started taking street pictures in the "red lights" district El Barrio Chino (i.e. Chinatown, now "Raval") at the age of 37.
He had a day time job in accounting and use to shoot during weekends.
I love his style partially because of my addiction to shooting candids "from the hip".
Almost all of his images from 1958 to 1964 were shot "clandestine".
He did this because he tried to capture something very elusive: the glances, gestures, grimaces, poses, all king of people-to people interactions.
He wanted for his pictures to be emotional and alive, to capture the life in its moments and let it live in the photographic form forever.
And he succeeded.
I do not know any other photographer of the time so dedicated to this idea of capturing moments of life as Joan Colom was.
Here is he shooting in Raval with his Leica M2:

You see why the most of his pictures are verticals (i.e. "portrait" orientation).

The Shadow

I had not been shooting much lately and the films I still have developed do not give anything interesting; I fished this one from the old 2011's pile while looking through my archive for something else. It is Bessa R3M/35mm lens on Tri-X film rated at 1600 in Diafine.