090: Slowing Things Down — AMIR SHARIFF: Photography

I’ve been carrying a variable ND filter around for a few weeks now. If you haven’t come across one, it’s basically sunglasses for your lens. You twist the ring, and it cuts out more or less light. Why would anyone want less light in a city where the sun is already trying to finish you off by 11am? Because I wanted to shoot slow.

Most of my street photography has been about stopping things. Getting that microsecond of life on the streets into the frame. Fast shutter, sharp subject, done. But the streets I walk through every week don’t stand still. Buses pull away from the stop, riders squeeze through junctions, people cross the road with one eye on their phone. I wanted to see that in a photo. The catch is that in broad daylight, a slow shutter without a filter just gives you a white rectangle.

What set me down this slower path was a photo I took in Bangkok late last year: a street vendor at his stall, with a bus moving past behind him. I went in with that shot already fixed in my mind, and it ended up being one of my favourites from the trip. The feeling of slowing things down has stayed in the back of my mind ever since.

The method isn’t complicated. ISO as low as it goes, a reasonable aperture, then I turn the filter until the meter lets me use a shutter speed that feels slightly irresponsible. After that, there are two options. Keep the camera still and let everything move through the frame, so whoever is standing still stays sharp and the rest smears. Or pan with someone as they walk past, so they stay mostly sharp, and the background turns to paint. I say mostly. My keeper rate on these is low. Very low. Let’s just say I now own a lot of beautifully blurry photos of nothing in particular.

It’s a bit of a party trick, I’ll admit. But when it works, its fun.

At one junction, a group of traffic police in white helmets came through all at once. I caught the last one sharp; the rest melted into a blur. A man in a bright yellow shirt swung his scooter around the bend, and by panning with him I kept him sharp while the street slid sideways behind him. Two women rushed past me carrying bouquets, the flowers shaking in their arms - not the sharpest shot. And a woman crossed the road with her whole face covered in a white beauty mask, completely unbothered. She was protecting her skin from the sun. I was protecting my highlights. We both had our priorities.

Buses turned out to be my best friends. With the shutter open long enough, a bus becomes a long streak of colours, and the people waiting in front of it look strangely calm. One man turned and stared straight into my lens just as a bus went past behind him. I’m not sure he was impressed with me. A few blocks away, an old hawker sat under his patchwork umbrella sorting his things, while a bus slid past behind him as if he had nothing to do with it. That one is my favourite of the lot. I waited a fair while for the right bus to come by, and it felt like a small nod back to that Bangkok frame.

Then there was the graffiti wall. I stood there for the better part of an hour, panning with whoever walked by, which I’m sure looked odd. A man swinging his camera left and right at strangers is not a normal sight, and a few people gave me the look. In return, I got a woman in a hot pink cap, another under a white umbrella, and one in a white dress holding a deep blue umbrella, each of them sharp against a wall that had melted into colour.

Up on the train platforms, it got quieter. People stepping on and off the carriages became half-figures, there and not quite there, while the ones standing still waited at the edge for the next train. Same technique, very different mood.

A quick gear note: my 28mm and 40mm take the same filter size, so one filter covers both.

And a short update: there are a few big trips planned before the year ends, so blog posts may slow down while I juggle travelling and editing.

Which feels fitting, really. What started as one shot in Bangkok has turned into something I keep reaching for every time I head out, and I don’t think I’m taking the filter off anytime soon.

Hope you enjoy the images below.

Cheers.