On the Streets: F8 and Be There, Broadyway

On the Streets: F8 and Be There, Broadyway

I went for a late breakfast at Corvus. Technically it was brunch, but I’ve probably mentioned that I’m not a fan of brunch. Like so many things these days, brunch makes me think of hype and excessive consumption. I picture people spending way too much money on something so they can share the evidence of said excess to social media. Don’t mind me. I’m cynical and often hypocritical. Most people are just enjoying a meal with friends after a long week.

I went to Corvus. I ordered the Turkish breakfast. From the brunch menu. It was delicious. I had a long list of things to do and plan today, so I meant to eat quickly and get home. Instead I decided to experiment a bit with the F8 and be there school of photography. I left Corvus, walked to the northern end of Broadway, set my camera on F/8, manual focus to about 3.5 meters, shutter speed of 1/250th, and let the ISO ride. I then walked from that area south to John Street, snapping photos as I went.

Most of the photos were overexposed in the late afternoon sun. With digital cameras the conventional wisdom is protect or expose for the highlights, work on the shadows in post-processing. I need to get better at that. I liked being able to shoot quickly, though, with the f/8 and manual focus. I think that’s termed zone focusing. In general, with my settings, everything just short of 3.5 meters out to infinity(ish) should be in decent focus.

I’ve included the images below. Have a look. (The first two are bracketed HDR images at Corvus. I’ve done some paid work for them, but they’re not paying me to say that I love their food and the people who work there. The other images are in a slideshow. Loading individual images in Squarespace takes too long.)


Channeling William Eggleston. The three people who were sitting there seemed nice. Good friends hanging out before two were off for haircuts.

Channeling William Eggleston. The three people who were sitting there seemed nice. Good friends hanging out before two were off for haircuts.


Turkish Breakfast. Çok iyi (means very good in Turkish…that’s about all that remains of my Turkish.) Check out my terrible focusing choice here. Missed the eggs entirely. It was still delicious.

Turkish Breakfast. Çok iyi (means very good in Turkish…that’s about all that remains of my Turkish.) Check out my terrible focusing choice here. Missed the eggs entirely. It was still delicious.