I spotted Martin at the bottom of Hockley in Nottingham. He was on his bike with his colleague Tim.
I approached Martin and Tim and explained I was an amateur photographer doing a project on street strangers. They both readily volunteered to be a stranger for me.
Using the word volunteer in the paragraph above is quite apt as both Martin and Tim are volunteers for St. John Ambulance.
I asked Martin what there role was on the bikes. I was surprised to hear that they respond to 999 calls.
Helping keep the streets of Nottingham a safer and better place is a great voluntary service, so top respect to both Martin and Tim
I normally shoot with my nifty fifty lens, but I had lent it to my friend Gary who was at a wedding over the weekend, so this is shot with my Sigma 55-200. The Sigma has a tendency to blow highlights out a bit (either that or it is my camera technique), so this was a tricky shot to do as Tims coat and hat were very reflective and I needed to utilise the highlight recovery slider when editing in Rawtherapee.
I used an Ilford XP2 film emulation for my mono conversion.
I was going to crop some of the helmet off to reduce some of the glare and highlights, but I think the helmet is important to help tell the story, so you get a full helmet.
I had trouble with Tim's image as he had some riders glasses on and the reflections made the portrait a little too confusing, so only Martin appears on this photostream
Thanks again to Martin for the shot. Martin said he would check my strangers project out on flickr, so if you see this and want an email copy of the shot please contact me :)
This picture is number 21 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the
100 Strangers Flickr Group page
My own strangers can be seen here:
www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
@bluerose15 yes isee the inner confidence blue
@allie912 thanks allison, for your kind words on the photo and my narrative technique :)