Crowded Sidewalk, SXSW 2023 – Austin, Texas

For New York City and other big cities worldwide, admittedly, this sidewalk isn’t very crowded. However, for Austin, it’s a healthy amount of people, especially since this isn’t an entertainment district — this happens annually during SXSW. And compared to many cities in the U.S., Austin does have a vibrant downtown. Something the city has worked on for over a generation.

On Sunday, my second and last visit to SXSW 2023, I traveled light, bringing just one camera. I left the hefty Fujifilm GFX system at home. Instead, I had the Fuji X-S10 with the 16mm f2.8 — my favorite new lens. I’ve been practicing a lot with it.

I was shooting from the hip for this image and a few others that I’ll post soon. That’s a street photography technique where you stealthily take pictures without bringing the camera to your eye. I set the aperture deeper at f5.6 and a moderately short 1/250s shutter speed. I aimed my camera toward the crowd and took a shot producing a decent picture.

True old-school street photographers like to zone focus by setting the focus area to a predetermined distance away. Thus, you don’t have to focus explicitly. Instead, I used autofocus which is less traditional and exciting but works better with modern lenses which lack manual focusing features.

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