Blue Is The Colour...

Yesterday I went for a walk down Steve Biko str and Voortrekker str in Pretoria North...

I wanted to test my Canon Eos 6D and Canon Ef 85mm F1.8 lens. I recently bought the Eos 6D as a replacement to my Eos 5Dmk2. A few weeks later I also got the Eos Ef 85mm f1.8 lens.   The 85mm gives subtle compression, is small not to attract too much attention and is sharp right out into the corners at medium apertures

I am going on a cross country photographic journey next week and my main lenses will be the Canon TS=E 24mm f3.5 mk2 tilt and shift, Canon EF 40mmm f2.8 pancake and my new Canon Ef 85mm f1.8. I will take some other lenses with, but these three will be the ones I use most.

Why did I get the Eos 6D? I was just bowled over by the smaller size, astounding high iso capabilties, the soft shutter, how well it focuses in almost total darkness, and the fact that its got GPS and Wifi. Its just so much more 'sorted' than the older Eos 5dmk2.

Anyway coming back to the title of my blog, I couldnt help notice all the blue colours in my images when I looked at them at leisure on my monitor yesterday. One of my favourite jazz song start with the word 'black is the colour of my true loves hair'....and somehow when I saw all this blue the words of that song kept on popping up in my head.

My first stop was at my favourite blue wall on the corner of Steve Biko street. the problem is that there is a ton of traffic and its is quite difficult to get a clear shot across the street with no cars blocking the way. the lady is selling pens with three colours for R5-00 each ( the equivalent of about 50 American 50 ) I couldn't help wondering how many of those pens she has to sell a day to make any meaningful income....the times surely are tough.  ( The images of the blue wall are the only ones here not made with the Canon Ef 85mm f1.8 and was made with my Canon TS E 24mm f3.5 tilt & shift ) The image above is a 100% crop of the first image.

This guys name is Hennie and he is a 'car guard'. He asked me to take his photograph and then asked me if i wouldn' mind buying him a pie and coke...

Here is a 100% crop of the photo below. I always marvel at all the detail that photography can capture. When I took this photograph of the scene across the street I did not even see the two guys...one is actually looking at me and the other one at the girl.

Ahmed asked me to take a photograph of him and his staff. Ahmed is from Eypt and afterwards I wondered how he landed up here in Pretoria North...I will ask him next time I see him. Below is a photograph of a Chinese store, something that is seen more and more over here, even in the smallest most remote little towns one will find a Chinese store.

When I come back from my holiday I will post a detailed review of my new Eos 6D...

Regards, Ivan