The Magic Trio

Eric Ahrendt July 21, 2024 No Comments

I often think of this quote from Alan Schaller when I’m out hunting for street photos: “If you can get the magic trio of a good subject, good environment, and good light all together in one frame, you’re winning.” If I can find a spot where I’ve got two of the three, or am close to getting them, I’ll stay there and try to get the third. On a recent trip into West Oakland, that’s the situation I was in. I had noticed a brightly colored wall near where I was headed, which was exceptionally vivid because it was front-lit at that time of day—meaning I had two of the three. Now I needed a subject. I saw this cyclist

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Back to Film

Eric Ahrendt June 9, 2024 No Comments

Like many photographers in my age cohort, I shot film for decades before digital came along. Also like many others, I did some darkroom work back in the day, developing and printing black and white film. But I hadn’t shot film in probably 20 years … before buying a film camera a few months ago. I had read about the renewed interest in film, so I knew shooting film again had become a thing. I’d always liked the tangible, craft aspect of developing and printing, and still really like the look of silver gelatin prints, as opposed to inkjet prints. Recently I went to the Irving Penn exhibit in San Francisco, and seeing his prints was the final nudge to

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Portrait Session in the Mission

Eric Ahrendt April 15, 2024 No Comments

I recently did a portrait session with Kiki in the Mission District in San Francisco. We arrived early, when the streets were uncrowded and we had a clear sky with angled light. I’d scouted some locations ahead of time, and chose mural backgrounds—ideally, without discernible letters, which could be distracting. There’s no shortage of murals of all kinds in the Mission. This was one of our first locations. I mostly used ambient light, but sometimes added light from a dialed-down flash, as I did here. I alternated between landscape and portrait format, depending on how much environment I wanted to show. Kiki brought different scarves; the yellow one reflects a warmer light onto her face. This square crop shows more

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