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Speed dating on a train











The agency I work for held a speed dating event on a subway train on Valentine's Day. My job was to take a few photos for our blog, meaning I had to do something unusual for me: take pics of actual people. Yikes! I'm used to taking photos of birds and mountains and such. 

It was actually kind of a tough task. The light in the subway is yellow-ish and unflattering. I couldn't find a white balance setting that made anything look good. I also don't have a full frame camera -- which are better in low light -- nor did I want to use a flash that bother participants. 

I jacked up the ISO on my Nikon D5100 and ended up using the Nikon 35mm 1.8 lens, the fastest lens that Nikon makes for DX cameras. That helped. I also decided to shoot black and white and set the picture control in the camera to monochrome. Even though I was shooting in RAW -- which would spit out color pics in Lightroom -- I was able to see the photos in black and white on my playback screen. (I could have also shot RAW + Fine to get jpegs in black and white). 

I ended up pretty happy with the photos I got -- the above are my favorites. Their candid and the black and white adds a nice urban feel to them. 

Hey! Check out more of my work at my SmugMug site

--S.H.

All photos by Steve Hymon/Metro. All Metro photos can be viewed and downloaded for free at Metro's Flickr site