Mono Monday: "F8 and be there"

I was intrigued by today's Mono Monday theme, and when I started looking into what it meant I found myself more and more worried...

The phrase (I learned) is attributed to legendary photojournalist and street photographer Arthur "WeeGee" Fellig, who claimed it was the secret of his success. Lock the lens at f8 and you have significant depth of field without getting down to very low shutter speeds; you can hand-hold with reasonable confidence and don't have to worry too much about focusing or fiddling with settings, which makes you much more likely to capture "the moment" (i.e. to "be there").

I'm rubbish at street photography. I'm usually way too self-conscious to point a camera at someone nearby in case they take offence. (It feels different when I'm trying to catch a candid shot at the end of a 300mm lens - at a safe distance!) But I girded my loins, set my 50mm lens to f8, and manually set focus to a reasonable distance which at that aperture should let me keep (reasonably) nearby people and the background in focus. And started wandering around Banff, where at least there's less chance my involuntary subjects would know me.

As you can see, the shot I chose was a bit a of a cop-out, as the subjects had their backs to me (phew!). I took it from the bottom of Strait Path in Banff, waiting to catch people going up its steep slope (and trying to avoid cars and vans passing the top of it).