The Leica File: Strawberry Ice Cream

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved

Walking in the Meatpacking area of New York City, I saw the ice cream truck's technicolor paint job, along with the red shirt and white hat worn by the ice-cream eater, and all seemed a perfect juxtaposition of brilliant colors. I know I haven't nailed it from a compositional standpoint, and I'd be happier had I gone lower and a few inches to the left...but it is what it is, and that's what street photography is all about...the scene happens in a second and you either get it or you don't.

Because of the 28mm lens, I was about a foot away from the gentleman and he seemed unaware that he was in my frame, and the integral part of the composition.

I should have used different settings instead of the f2.8 and an iso of 400...it was a brilliant sun, and I could've had better results with an f8 and an iso of 160, but my camera had these settings on already, and I didn't have time to reset them since I was focusing as quickly as I could. I find that accurately focusing the M9 still requires very careful adjustment...even in brightly-lit scenes such as these.

Beyond being sharpened a little bit, the image wasn't post-processed nor cropped.