West Bear: 120 Striking Street Photos

In 100 years, we'll still appreciate black and white street photography. I mean, it'll fly at our retinas at warp 9 and we'll be tasting it via synesthetic implants, but it'll still be in black and white.

WINNER - Woman on the Street

My name is Alessandro Schneider and im from Munich Germany Studying Photography in Florence. I used a Nikon FE Black 35mm film camera with a AF Micro Nikkor 105mm 1:2.8 lens and Kodak Tri-x 400 B&W Negative Film. The story behind the photograph is the following. It was a bright and sunny morning on my way to school and the sun light was hitting the street in a manner which casted long shadows. I personally did not believe in the perfect moment to capture a photograph but there it was right infront of my eyes. All i had to do is raise my camera check the lightmeter and hold down the shutter button. At the time i did not think much of it but it happened to be my last picture on my roll of film and it so happened that i was going to my dark room class to develop that roll of film. All came together and my submission is a print.
- Alessandro Schneider

Where To Next?

My name is Christoph Welkovits and I'm an Austrian hobby photographer currently studying architecture. I took the photo on the "Mariahilferstrasse" in Vienna! The whole scene looked really weird to me because the man (I guess he was her husband) was standing there like he'd punch her in the face just right now! I guess you can see what I mean! Leica M6 TTL, Leica Summicron 35/2 APSH., Shutterspeed ~1/60, F-stop 2.0, Film: Trix 400 pushed to 1600, Developed in XTOL, Scanned with a Nikon Coolscan IV, Edited in PS
- Christoph Welkovits

Praise!

My friend and I went downtown to try to find good subjects for this photo challenge...unfortunately, we didn't think about it being Sunday, and the streets were practically deserted. After a couple of hours of disappointment in the cold, this man came singing and dancing down the main street to some (clearly inspiring!) Christian music that only he could hear. We chased him for nearly 10 blocks, trying to get a shot between trees, cars and pedestrians, and finally got him as he made this dramatic exit onto a side street. Shutter: 1/790, Aperture: f/5.6, ISO: 100
- Emily Scott

Liberty

Took this shot as I was walking through Times Square at near night time. Saw a guy dressed up like the statue of liberty and a family trying to take a photo of him. This one kid was trying to be funny for a group of friends nearby and was sneaking around behind him photo-bombing "bunny-ears" into all the shots. The angle of the shot and composition was me trying to be inconspicuous to his group of friends that were almost right next to me, I had very little time to compose and focus(manual) and snapped the shot off as quickly as possible, immediately turning and walking away after. You can see the giant Samsung Logo in the top left out of focus and a McDonald's in the bottom right. If you've been to Times Square that should give you a pretty good indication as to where we were standing. Times Square/NYC
Nikon F100, Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4, Ilford Delta 3200 film, Developed in Rodinal 1+25 Dilution
- Brett Price

Hand-Holding Ahead

On Sunday afternoon I shouted to myself "challenge accepted" , took my camera and went out to roam around the city in search for some nice pray to photograph. After about half and hour i saw this charming couple holding their hand and realized that there is a pedestrian way sign about 500 meters ahead. I had to follow them all the way there, and once they approached it i just started snapping and running around from left to right to capture at least one shot at a nice angle. I probably looked pretty strange doing so but then again this city is full of weird people and that's why I love it here in Lund :)

Shot with a Nikon D3100. 1/250 sec at ISO 12800. 18-105mm lens at 90mm and F/5.6 (followed by some cropping) Forgot to turn off noise reduction :(
- Marek Baczynski

Heart Attack

I was walking down Jefferson Street in San Francisco, when I saw a man fall to the ground, so I ran over to see what happened. A cop and a doctor got to him before I did, so I pulled out my Canon EOS Rebel SLR and snapped a single shot, after which I felt like a terrible person for doing so since the man was having a heart attack. Anyways, all editing was done in a darkroom and I shot with a 35mm lens Ilford HP5 Plus ISO 400 film, f/5, 1/40.
- Dylan Jeffery

Permission Wall

I took my boys downtown to photograph a "permission wall" (legal place to graffiti) that was recently talked about in the local paper. This particular shot I captured as the artist was stepping back to look at his progress. It came out a lot better than I thought it was going to. Photo taken with iPhone 4 and edited with camera+ app for black and white and added depth.
- Justin Deavers

Orthopedics

I was walking in San Francisco when I saw this man across the street. Something about the way he was hunching over, leaning against the telephone poll made me grab my camera, press it to my face, and squeeze the shutter. In B&W, the scene take on a whole new level of somberness, which color just could not capture. Camera - Nikon D40, Lens - 55-200mm f/5.6, ISO - 400, Shutter - 1/400 sec.
- Samuel Klein

Waiting

I knew that I wanted to use the Miami Metrorail for this shooting challenge. I actually thought that I would capture the shot on the Metrorail itself, but there was this couple that I found really inspiring on the platform (I'm pretty sure they thought I may have been a stalker). I actually was trying to capture the boyfriend because he had this really great newsboy style hat on, but right as the railcar started to come, the girl got into this pose and I clicked. I did my B&W and post-processing work in Lightroom. I added grain to the shot give it a little more of a gritty effect. Enjoy. Nikon D90, Nikon 18-105; f3.5-5.6, ISO: 800 Exposure: 1/40 at f/22
- Lauren Roberson

Silhouettes

I went to the square in downtown Denton Texas on Sunday afternoon expecting to see a deserted sidewalk and little or no activity. Much to my surprise, Denton has a very active downtown. I even spotted a number of other photographers walking around with their cameras. Camera: Canon XTi, Canon 70-300mm F/4-5.6 IS USM, F/16, 1/800 sec., ISO: 400
- Robert Allen

IKEA Nap

Hours of shopping in an overcrowded IKEA on a weekend is great fun - if you bring your camera! My fiancé and I went to IKEA Burbank (LA, California) this weekend to buy loads of furniture for our new house. I had my Sigma DP2 (I love that camera) hanging around my neck and just comfortably rested one hand on it with my finger on the trigger, ready to shoot any time. And so I did, I took tons of pictures (all of them blindly, with the screen switched off). I only looked at them all at the end of the day when I was all done. It was so much fun!

This one I chose because I like the surfaces and lines as well as the dynamics in it. The guy lying on the bed tells a lot about how exhausting IKEA can be on a weekend. At the same time the picture has a bit of a tragic quality with the guy being reminiscent of a young hero dying in a drama such as Rebel without a Cause. Ah IKEA, so much excitement all over a bit of furniture! Sigma DP2, 24.2 focal length, f2.8, exposure 1/80, ISO 800, minor enhancements in iPhoto
- Michael Hill

On the Phone

Living in the great city of Chicago this was a contest that I couldn't pass up. I was walking my dog throughout the city with this weeks Shooting Challenge in mind. Although, I was too busy trying to create the ideas that I had in my mind opposed to looking around watching people; this quickly became my downfall. After an hour or so passed with no luck, and almost no photos taken, I was headed down the financial district when I noticed these three men, looking at their phones and smoking. I quickly grabbed my Nikon and started shooting. I feel this is the most "telling" of the set. Shot on a Nikon D60 with my 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens at 55mm, f/5.6 and shutter speed was at 1/30 sec, with the ISO at 200.
- Sean Petykowski

Reflection

I was really excited about this week's project, because I love "stealing" portraits off the street. I waited, however, until the night before submissions were due, which turned out to be a frigid, quiet night in the city. I started at Madison Square Park, shooting all the way down to Chinatown and wasn't happy with anything I got off the street. Half-way down, though, I stopped in a restaurant in the Village and, as I was ordering, I realized that the lighting at the bar was pretty lovely. I asked the waiter to move me over and, as I waited for my food, I set my camera on the shiny marble bar and took a few shots. I'm hopeful that this qualifies, given that I wasn't technically "on the street" when I took the shot. ISO 5000, f 3.2 at 1/50 with a Canon 28mm 1.8 on a 5D Mark 2.
- Kelvin Chen

Fantastic entries as always—picking a winner was fairly impossible this week. Full galleries below, wallpaper-size photos on flickr.