As mentioned previously, I’ve been exploring the wonders of Shutter Priority mode and looking at Yusuf Sevincli’s work (which reminds me some of Daido Moriyama, for likely obvious reasons).

The former is fun to play with—and I can foresee some possibilities for exploration—and the latter leads me to think about aesthetic, in particular the aesthetic particular to a certain brand of contemporary photographer, that gritty, contrasty, often black-and-white, but also sometimes in more or less saturated color, usually emulating (or produced on) classic film stocks (Tri-X, in particular, and pushed/pulled Tri-X specifically), most often in the street or documentary camp and tending to focus on subcultures or metropolitan subjects.

I expect photography historians would be able to trace the root of all of this, and going much further is beyond the scope of this post. What I will say is this: I like the aesthetic, mostly, but am beginning to get a bit used to it.

Anyway.

So I was thinking of Sevincli and Moriyama, and working on this picture, and I hit upon a set of settings that mostly captured some of the angst and gnashing of teeth I feel at work at times (and feeling it more and more as time goes on), and I decided to copy those settings and apply them to a collection of shots from this week, mostly while walking to my car, or in the car, driving to or from work.

Hopefully, this collection of settings does two things:

1. It captures a certain mood, a feeling I get from time to time, anxious, frustrated, piled-on, but with the color that is so often missing from the millions hundreds of contemporary amateur and wannabe photographers that employ a similar aesthetic
2. It makes some commentary on this aesthetic, remaining distant from it, and not quite adopting it, but employing it to some effect.

Anyway, with that, I give you:

Commute.

a hasty project by James Cockroft

I might add to or remove from this as time goes on, or I might never revisit this or use this preset again.

If you like the look, and use Lightroom 5, you can download the preset here. You’re free to use it, remix it, whatever. I didn’t put any disclaimers or protections on the file itself, so do what you like, but if I find you using it for a commercial purpose without modifying the settings and without attribution, I’ll come after you.

Thanks for looking and/or reading, and I’d love to hear some comments!

D7000. Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO100, various shutter speeds from 1/30th to 1/250th, Shutter Priortity mode. I used my Gritty Vibrant Frustration preset.