Since I was uncertain of my schedule in Taiwan, I left for the trip knowing I was going to spend most of my photo-taking time working on my street photography. In the past year or so, I’ve really fallen in love with street photography, especially while traveling. It so exciting trying to capture the shot. It’s hard to plan for since you don’t know what is going to be going on and when you get something cool, it makes it so much more thrilling.
So far, the biggest tip I can offer for street photography is always being prepared and don’t put your camera away. You don’t know where the shot is going to be and you want to be ready when it happens. I’ve noticed that I’ve also gotten into the habit of always turning off my camera after I take a shot. I really made an effort to leave my camera on because even in a second, the image you see on the street can be gone.
One thing you gotta know about Taiwan is that the cars rule the streets. Pedestrians need to look out for cars as opposed to the other way around in the States. So you always cross at crosswalks when it’s your turn. The cars get a pretty long time to drive along the road, in turn, pedestrians get a while to cross the street too. AND you get a countdown. The longest countdown I saw started at 90 seconds. So it gives you plenty of time to cross the street or take pictures of people crossing the street. LOL.
This image was taken while I was wandering the streets of Taipei. It was one of those 90-second countdowns but as you can see, I captured it at 20 seconds left for the cars to drive before the pedestrians can cross. What I love about this image is all the information you see. You see the people lined up, with the store signs in the background and on the very top you can see the count down to begin to cross. So much going on can be a little chaotic, but everytime I look at this image I see something different.
My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/800th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.
