The post Normandy first appeared on guido-steenkamp.

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The magazine is available as a German and an English version. www.lfi-online.de

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I started Street Photography in 2006. I wouldn’t say I consciously decided to focus on Street Photography, it’s more that I stumbled into it by accident. I like walking in the streets and I like to watch people. At some point I started to capture the moments when I noticed something unusual or funny – just small details of daily lives.

The most exciting aspect of Street Photography for me is that there is nothing you have to prepare and almost nothing you could plan. All you have to do is to step out on the street and have your camera ready. It needs a lot of patience, experience and mostly luck to get a decent shot. But when this happens, it’s fantastic – nothing beats that.

And how do you pay the bills?

I am fortunate enough not to have to earn my money by working as a photographer. I work as a head of a consulting department at a Berlin based software company. That’s not the most fun job in the world but at least I am free to photograph whatever I want to in my spare time.

Which photographers inspire you?

I admire the works of Alex Webb and Trent Parke, I own every single photo book they ever published. There are also some less known (Street) Photographers that I found to be very inspiring, Lukas Vasilikos and Jack Simon just to name two. (ST84Photo notes – Jack Simon was recently announced as one of the winners of the Street Photography Now Project, a year long project run by The Photographers’ Gallery)

Editing/selecting which images to show is crucial for a street photographer. Has being in a collective helped you with this process?

Indeed, editing and selecting images is the hardest part. As you may know the Seconds2Real members live in different cities, some in Germany, some in Austria. It happens only once or twice a year that we meet in person. Most of the editing is done via the internet. We use a forum for discussions, Dropbox to manage and edit our picture pool and Skype whenever something needs to be clarified short-term.

We all know that Flickr is certainly not the best place if one is looking for serious comments. That’s why I show my work to other Seconds2Real photographers whenever possible. Of course honest criticism is hard to take, particularly when it comes from friends, but it’s always very much appreciated.

In the UK, street photography has become very popular over the last year (the Street Photography Now book published, Format Festival dedicated to street photography, the London Street Photography Festival, your work on show at Look11, and lots of popular workshops). Have you felt that street photography has also been more popular recently in your own country? And do think that street photography will continue to be popular in this way?

That’s true. The recent one and a half years have been truly awesome for the Street Photography community in the UK. From my perspective all of this started when in-Public published their book ’10’ in 2010, followed by ‘Street Photography Now’ and the different festivals this year.

Unfortunately Street Photography in Germany is not as popular as in the UK. There are virtually no contemporary Street Photography exhibitions in Germany. Besides the very strict publication laws we have, I do believe the main problem is that there have never been such strong Street Photography advocates in Germany like you have in the UK with supporters like Nick Turpin and Matt Stuart. Hopefully this will change soon, at least we are doing our best to improve the situation. In the recents six months we already did Street Photography workshops in Hamburg and Berlin and we are working on two group exhibitions in Berlin and Vienna.

Any tips or “words of wisdom” for other street photographers?

I don’t think I am the right person to give advice on this, but I am happy to summarize what worked for me:

* A good way to start Street Photography is to attend public events or to visit touristic spots. Photographers are expected at these types of events or places and no one will bother you when taking pictures.

* Learn to use hyperfocal focusing. A lens with a depth of field scale marked on it will help (like most Rangefinder lenses have).

* Learn to get close to the subject. Don’t make yourself think that a picture of someone’s back will look good – this is usually not the case.

* Find places with lots of people, know the times when they are present and the light is good.

* Make sure to read “Ways of working” at 2POINT8

* Learn to accept that getting a decent Street Shot is just a happy accident. As you get better you have more happy accidents.

What would be your ideal gear for doing street photography with?

Ah, the Inevitable gear question. I guess I am now supposed to say “It’s the photographer, not the camera!”? This of course is true, but I am quite gear head too. Now then, I did about 95% of my work with a Leica M6, loaded with Tri-X and using Summicron 35mm or 50mm lenses. I must admit though that I found myself using digital more and more recently.

With analog the choice of camera is very easy, get a Leica and you are done. With digital it’s way more complicated. Either the camera sucks because of poor battery life, like the Leica M9 I owned for some months, or it’s unusable because it’s too big/too loud to be used on the streets.

My current digital gear consists of a Nikon D700 I use at bigger events and a Nikon D7000 that serves as my carry-with-me-always camera, both with 35mm/35mm equivalent lenses. The Nikons are decent cameras but they are not ideal for Street Photography. For me it still feels wrong using a DSLR on the streets. Camera-wise I certainly enjoy Street Photography the most when using my 25-years old Leica.

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Q: When was the Seconds2Real collective formed? Who came up with the idea for the collective or how did it get initiated?

A: Seconds2Real actually started as a simple Street Photography Flickr group created by Ronny Künniger in 2007. After some time the most active members decided to set up Seconds2Real as real-life Street Photographers collective. It was in 2008 when we first met in person in Vienna. Since then we gather once or twice a year, each time in a different city. I guess what differentiates Seconds2Real the most is the fact that it is not just another online project. We help motivate, criticize, and value each other constantly. It’s a close family of like-minded individuals. The following photographers are members of Seconds2Real:

Alex Magedler – Vienna, Austria
Andreas Stelter – Minden, Germany
Christian Reister – Berlin, Germany
Elisabeth Schuh – Vienna, Austria
Friedrich Schiller – Vienna, Austria
Guido Steenkamp – Berlin, Germany
Heiko Menze – Vienna, Austria
Kay von Aspern – Vienna, Austria
Mario Cuic – Munich, Germany
Natalie Opocensky – Vienna, Austria
Ronny Künniger – Augsburg, Germany
Siegfried Hansen – Hamburg, Germany
Thorsten Strasas – Berlin, Germany

Q: What’s the main goal of the collective?

A: The otherwise rather neglected Street Photography has evolved in recent years, but mainly in the anglo-american world. Seconds2real’s focus is therefore on promoting Street Photography from our home countries, Germany and Austria.

Q: What’s your role in the collective?

A: Actually we do not have a clear division of responsibilities at Seconds2Real. We are a equal group where everyone does what they do best. Some are specialized in printing, others in doing public relations or in organizing events. Because it’s close to what I do in my day-time job, I take care of our website as well as of our social media activities.

Q: What are the main characteristics of the collective’s members?

A: One of the main characteristics is – of course – the passion for Street Photography. But beyond that, the collective has a wide range of photographic styles, from classic black and white to modern street shots in colour. Photographic diversity is one of the strengths of Seconds2Real, and as a result our members must be very open-minded about other styles.

Q: What are some of the projects and activities that have come out of Seconds2Real?

A: Most of our members exhibitions and publications are individual and therefore not organzied by the group. However a group exhibition always was something we wanted to do. We are delighted to present our first group exhibition “fascination street” in Berlin this October. As the participating photographers work very differently, I think this exhibition will very well show how many facets contemporary street photography does have. Next year we will show “fascination street” in Vienna. Other cities are being considered too.

Q: If someone is interested in joining the collective, what’s your advice for them?

A: Well, we do not aim to be the biggest “street photographers club” or something like that. We are far more interested in establishing a stable community of street photographers that are willing to work hard on joint projects. For this of course, the chemistry between the photographers has to be right. If in doubt, this point goes to the photographic skills.

A geographically distributed organization like ours only works if we keep the number of photographers to a manageable size. We are therefore very cautious when it comes to adding new members, but are not completely closed. At the end of the year there will be probably a new group member joining Seconds2Real.

Q: What’s the collective’s relationship with Leica?

Street Photography in general has been dominated by Leica photographers the last couple of decades. This has not changed with today’s Leica M9, which is generally considered as the gold standard for digital street photography tools.

Together, with the cameras high responsiveness and small size, it’s actually the rangefinder system itself that sets the Leica apart from other cameras and makes it particularly suitable for our type of Street Photography. With rangefinder cameras the clear view of the subject remains even during exposure and guarantees extremely fast and precise focusing. You don’t get this from any of the omnipresent SLR cameras. It is therefore not surprising that most of the Seconds2Real photographers are using digital or analog Leica Rangefinder cameras for their work.

Personally I use a 25-year-old Leica M6 most of the time and for colour work the M9, both with the Summicron 35mm ASPH lens.

Q: Can you share more information about the street photography exhibition in Berlin this month. Where will it take place?

MEINBLAU Kunsthaus
Christinenstrasse 18/Schönhauser Allee 176
10119 Berlin
Germany

Q: How long will it be available to see?

A: The exhibition, which is solely sponsored by Seconds2Real. will be shown from 15th October until 30th October 2011 (admission free). The opening is on 14th October 2011 at 7 pm (admission free).

Q: What do you want people to know about the exhibition?

A: Seconds2Real, a co-operative of thirteen passionate Austrian and German street photographers are going to be hosting an exhibition titled: “Fascination Street”, their first group exhibition of contemporary Street Photography. Seconds2Real will be showing more than 120 Street Photography prints at the unique Meinblau Gallery in Beriln. This event will be a very comprehensive exhibition devoted to Street Photography from German speaking countries.

Q: How were the photos selected for the exhibition?

A: Seconds2Real members live in different cities, some in Germany, some in Austria. It happens only once or twice a year that we meet in person. Therefore more of the editing is done via the internet. We use an internal forum for discussions, Dropbox to manage and edit our picture pool, Skype whenever something needs to be clarified short-term and Doodle to vote on images. In fact, an organization like Seconds2Real would be inconceivable without the Internet.

Q: What can people look forward to from Seconds2Real in the future?

A: As already mentioned above, besides our current show in Berlin, we are planning to show “fascination street” 2012 in Vienna and probably in some other cities too. Besides that we also working on a book of contemporary Street Photography from Germany and Austria. We hope to have the book published in 2012.

Guido Steenkamp, thank you very much!

Interview at LFI

The post Interview with Leica Magazine LFI first appeared on guido-steenkamp.

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As most Street photographers I use the lens at it’s hyperfocal distance. For those not familiar with hyperfocal focusing: The basic idea is to take advantage of the depth of field to achieve the greatest amount of apparent focus. With a 35mm lens and by using an opening like f/8 or f/11, depth of field will extend from the close foreground to a point (hopefully) behind the subject, thereby achieving acceptably sharp focus throughout the relevant parts of the image. The main advantage is that you can take a picture almost in a split-second. As you don’t have to focus, all you have to take care of is to compose the frame and to press the shutter when the moment is right. That’s actually done a lot easier than explaining it

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