It had been a long time until I was able to step out to the street and practice with my camera, so I grabbed my compact camera, a Fuji x100F paired with a wide teleconverter lens and just went out for a drive with the idea of keeping things simple.

Having recently got that wide teleconverter; my plan was to practice zone focusing with a set aperture of F8. The only thing I kept automatic was my ISO, and I limited my decision making to just the shutter speed, which I kept between 60/sec-500/sec. One feature I like about the Fuji X100F is the three stop ND filter it comes with, which is handy when exposing for highlights to retain as much detail as possible.

The location where I ended up doing my photo walk was a suburb area in Bridgeport, CT, not far from the interstate highway. I love to walk around Bridgeport, and this time I wanted to venture a little farther than the usual spots, so by the time I got close to a highway bridge, I knew I had found a perfect opportunity to try something different. By ‘different,’ I don’t mean anything unique or groundbreaking but just something I had not given much consideration until now; which is being patient and play the wait game.

So, I stood on a sidewalk waiting for people to walk by in front of my frame. My idea was to click the shutter as the person would reach the angle where the highlight meets the shadow. This exercise was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed playing with the geometry created by the light as well as taking my time to set the frame, which to a certain extent, it almost felt like painting.

Some great photographers know how to do this sort of thing like champions, and my immediate source of reference when I began to play with this concept was Fan Ho, a renown Chinese photographer who created photographs with a very defined, minimal aesthetic that seemed to be the result of carefully designed compositions. His work is something I wish to look closely into.