The Sidewalk Artist: Denver 2012

Music festivals, craft fairs, and art fairs are rich hunting grounds for vintage camera photographers.  Look especially for artist’s booths, as one may capture an image of someone sitting for their portrait or a face being painted.  These subjects are ideal for vintage cameras, as they are typically sitting very still; since the maximum aperture of a lens encircled by the mechanism of a leaf shutter is typically around  f/3.5, this allows use of a slow shutter speed.

Fortunately, this chalk artist at a sidewalk art festival in Denver was well and evenly illuminated by indirect afternoon sunlight bounced from surrounding buildings.  The original image included many legs and feet of spectators and passers-by; judicious cropping isolated the artist and his young admirer, the latter entranced by each broad stroke of colored chalk.  This image was taken on XP-2 with the Ensign 820 and the Ross Xpres lens.