street portrait

All photos available for print and licensing >

Right before I left for Taiwan, I purchased my very first prime lens. If you have noticed on my gear page, I only have zoom lenses. But recently, I’ve been watching a lot of youtube videos who have been saying all these great things about prime, that I had to give one a try.

The hype is real! I loved it! I probably walked around Taiwan with my new 35mm prime lens about 70% of the time. I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did. One main reason was that I already have a 16-35mm and I wasn’t sure if it would be that much of a difference. The second reason was that I thought I would have to get used to not being able to zoom. OMG, I loved it just because it made shooting so much easier and the lens itself is so tiny. I felt like I could shoot all day without getting tired.

This image was taken with my new 35mm one afternoon in Jiufen. More about Jiufen later but I love how colorful this portrait turned out. This vendor was taking money from her customer when she looked up very quickly. I’m glad I was already in position to capture this portrait because this look only lasted a second. Probably would have been hard to take with any other lens but a prime.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/250th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime.