It is one of the advantages of living in Italy, I guess. A friend sent a WhatsApp message and suggested we meet for lunch at the weekend. So, a quick chat with the other half and we replied, saying that it sounded like a great idea and we would meet them there. Saturday arrived and we set off, fashionably late and headed 40 minutes up the road to the amazing city of Orvieto in Umbria to join the tourists, day-trippers and locals enjoying the end of the Italian summer.
Lunch was great (as expected) and we set off to stroll around the city, heading for the cathedral and the Signorelli frescos in the afternoon. As usual, I had my camera and better than that, I had a couple of friends who are understanding of my photography needs. That is to say, they don’t complain when I stop take pictures. In fact, they decided to wander off and explore and leave me to do my thing. It wasn’t therefore a specific picture-taking trip, but I did get plenty of time to indulge myself, which worked out well for everyone.
We were lucky to catch the end of an arts festival, so here are a couple of shots and observations from the day.
I have mentioned before that street photography isn’t something I have done a lot of (here) but that I enjoy. The major difference with these pictures is that street performers are expecting to be photographed, so will play to the audience and to the cameraman, almost on demand. But I wanted to get a different feel to the pictures, so I decided to keep my distance and try not to attract their attention to directly. With that in mind and for simplicity, I stuck to my trusty Canon EF 70-200 f/4. It is a sharp lens, quick in these kind of daylight situations and allows me to keep a good distance from the subject. It also allows me to look like I am taking pictures of something else if needed!
The picture above is a case in point. Three performers were coming round the corner, looking almost nervous as they did so. Only once did they glance in my direction, but this enabled me to get this slightly worried looking, candid shot. A case of pre-performance nerves? Who knows!
A little further up the street was this chap - playing the accordion on stilts. This meant that I could shoot and get a clear shot above the heads of the surrounding crowd. It also helped to provide a lovely clean background and positioned him close to the tree, adding a nice framing element to the shot. It has to be noted that his act was quite gentle and sweet, but for some reason I found his face paint added a touch of menace to his look. This shot only emphasises that, which is probably not fair, but it does make you realise why children can have nightmares about such things…
In contrast, this lady in her clown costume ticked all the boxes for children and adults alike. There are similarities with the previous image, right down to the accordion, but the impact was totally different. The toy trumpet blowing bubbles make this feel much more ephemeral and whimsical. And being seated, low and below the audience created a much more childlike feeling, which was absolutely charming to watch. Both performers were fun and talented, but the same basic building blocks of clown, accordion, red nose and hat resulted in two wildly different images.
They say that cities can be lonely places, that you can be at your most alone in a crowd. To me, this shot shows just how that can happen. It was strange, but every person walked past this saxophonist without looking at him. Why? I don’t know. He was playing with a real passion, and was a pretty good performer, but he just looked sad. Maybe that was causing the slightly strange reaction from people? There was no crowd around him, nor people sitting watching. I actually thought long and hard about including this picture as I find it to be quite a melancholic image, but I guess that not every street performer needs to be a clown. The strangest thing was that I only took a couple of shots, because photographing him made me feel very self-conscious.
I gave him a euro as I walked past - I hope that others did too.