Mono Monday: Shooting from the hip

The brief from Marlieske originally specified street photography, but the weather wasn't conducive to good street opportunities; so I did my shooting from the hip in Bonds, where R and I went today for an excellent sandwich lunch.

I know that some people love this technique, and use it very effectively - notowennewitt springs to mind - but I found it really quite difficult: not only was it quite difficult to point the camera in the exact direction I'd planned (only three of my forty frames were usable), but I also felt very self-conscious doing it. When you lift the camera and look through the viewfinder you're obviously and openly taking a photo, but shooting from the hip is surreptitious, and if people notice what you're doing it they don't always react well. At one point the barista spotted me and came over to the table, but luckily my fear that I was about to be asked to stop taking photos in the café proved to be unfounded - her opening remark was "Oooh - is that a 5D?", and it turned out that she had studied photography at college. But other people were more suspicious - one woman even got up and walked out, giving me a very Special Look as she went - so I was lucky that this man was too engrossed in his newspaper to notice or care what I was up to. It was an interesting challenge, but I don't think I'll be doing much shooting from the hip in future!