Ricoh GR IV Monochrome Street Photography at Philadelphia’s Southeast Asian Market

What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante.

Currently at the Southeast Asian Market here in FDR Park in Philadelphia, photographing with the Ricoh GR IV Monochrome today.

Gonna be doing some street photography and just take you along on this little journey here through the park.

So yeah, follow along and let’s hit the market.

Meat on a Stick

Check out the meat on a stick. They got meat on a stick. Oh my goodness!

Yeah, could I have two beef sticks?

When I was in Hanoi, Vietnam, every night I would just eat beef sticks. That’s what I would do. They have street food around the lake. I would just get beef sticks all the time and just munch on those.

Have a good one. Cheers.

Yeah, check it out. The beef stick.

Oh, it’s so good.

Look for the Gestures

Little gesture.

Look for the gestures. Every time I see hands, I photograph them.

I don’t know. Every time I see hands, I photograph them.

But gotta eat my meat, you know.

Lots of photography being done today. Everyone’s just waiting.

Macro Mode and 50mm Crop

Yeah, so we’re just sitting here by this beautiful bench with this view of the lake, and a little butterfly landed on our hands.

I’ve been photographing with the crop mode at 50mm using macro mode on the Ricoh, and I get extremely close and make these kind of surreal, abstract pictures of the insect.

I think one of the most powerful things about the Ricoh is the use of the macro mode combined with crop mode.

So I go from 28mm to 50mm to get extremely close details of insects.

There’s just a power in noticing these small details, slowing down, and then focusing on those details with the macro function.

Just click the up button on the D-pad.

Experimenting With the Sony Handycam

I’ve recently been experimenting with video using this old-school Sony Handycam.

What I really like about it is that I can get extremely close with the zoom.

I enjoy photographing people, so when I do video, I like filming people. And it’s interesting to see the moments that I usually capture with a still image, but as a moving image.

It’s something I’ve been experimenting with.

I think it might be the 20x optical zoom, honestly. But whatever it is, you can get extremely close.

It’s got a Carl Zeiss lens, so it’s sharp, but it shoots in 480p.

But yeah, look, I can even get B-roll footage—or just footage in general—of the people watching and film the gestures and the facial expressions.

Handycam in the bag.

Remember to Look Up

Yeah, so another thing is when I’m photographing, I’m not only just looking at the people or the gestures or the textures.

You can look up and photograph the beautiful sky and the clouds.

I also use the red filter so that I can add more drama and contrast to the sky. The Ricoh Monochrome is really good for that.

I’m even cropping into 50mm.

I love looking at the macro details—insects, textures, people, everything on the ground level.

But I always remind myself to look up because there’s so much beauty above.