Art Mimics Life

Now this image, created at 30th/sec at F2.8 gives me lots of satisfaction, and feels to me like it needs celebrating, over and above anything that I might have set up, or rendered out of CGI or God forbid stroked out of Mid-Journey.

Why do I make this claim?

Well because it came from a click. Not a series. But one. Click. In a fraction of a second. I had to identify the scenes potential. Fast. The longer u linger the more conspicuous u become.

I use old school manual focus lenses. This one in fact is a Nikkor 55mm F mount. It was a dimly lit interior. Oh get the subject sharp. Quickly. Without him noticing me.

I had to shoot through glass-I was outside the premises, and had to take into consideration the reflections and their ability to become distracting or obscure my subject entirely.

Click. Slice of life in 30/sec. That's what DSLR's were designed to do. Or Leica's or pretty much any 35mm camera.

None of this ballsing about with a tripod for me.

Oh and then there's the image.

What greeted me when I opened it up big on my computer screen was magic.

The scene reminds me of a Hogarth painting. There's something almost 18th Century about it.

And the interaction between the two! Are they plotting something? It certainly appears to me they are. Art mimics life. Life mimics art.

You see this image I shot last night, is for my ongoing personal fictional street photography series, I call, 'Searching for the Elusive Colonel Leo'.

The concept is the protagonist (me) is looking for the antagonist 'Colonel Leo', a renegade Taipei Police chief plotting a bizarre plan to recruit a secret militia to guard Taipei against a mainland Chinese invasion. All of this is merely a figment of my imagination.

But instead of employing actors or renderings out of Unreal Engine, or text prompts in Mid-Journey, I prefer to get real and let the magic that is called reality dish up exactly what I want. You just have to look and she will deliver!

In my book this is way more satisfying than calling upon digital fuckery...

To see more of this work and fine art prints, please visit,

www.richardmarkdobson.com