At Walter's Unisex serious work is going on.
I took most of these photographs on Myrtle Avenue on my Nikon D40 with my forty year old manual focus F1.4 50mm lens. Attaching this lens renders the auto focus and exposure meter in-operative. It was back to using the best piece of equipment I have ever owned (beside my Rolleiflex 2.8E) which is the Minolta 111 exposure meter.
The reason I use the fixed focal length lens is that firstly it is incredibly sharp, secondly it puts the backgrounds nicely out of focus at wide apertures, and thirdly it does not look offensive which most digital zoom lenses do.
I also like the more measured process of taking a reading with the meter and then setting the camera by hand. I like too moving the camera if you want to be nearer or farther away, rather than zooming in or out. These little delays and distractions can allow the subject to slightly alter his or her position or stop thinking of how they are looking, thus putting themselves in a different and possibly better pose.
Pictures of work are rare these days, there is much more emphasis on glamor and luxury, although fewer people have access to it. I think of Lewis Hine and August Sander and how they recorded workers.
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