Walking Through The Dark Streets - With Op/Tec

Street photography is a well-documented specialty of our art - the ability to slip unnoticed through the crowds and return with sparkling insights into the human condition. Also to get another 400 shots of the inside of your coat. Next time turn off the switch before you put it away.

Slipping unnoticed through the turbulence is a talent that some of us do not have. We stand out like sore thumbs wherever we go, and unless we disguise what we are doing, we never get candid shots. Hence the business of hollowing out a stack of books and secreting a camera inside - or like one client, putting it in a sports bag and cutting hole in the end of the bag. I believe his sentence will be completed in 5 more months...

A bit of help is the business of dressing down. Some of the people I see every day have this down to a fine art. They could blend in with any environment, and provided the wind was blowing in the right direction they would never be noticed. I think they could wheel a 16 x 20 Kodak Century Studio camera down Hay Street Mall invisibly. They need no help, save soap.

Others need to disguise their cameras. They put sticky bits of gaffer tape over the brand names and logos and try to make $ 10,000 worth of metal and glass look like a 1973 tourist camera. I am surprised at the lengths to which some of them go - as yet no-one has attached Mickey Mouse ears or a Hello Kitty face but it is coming.

If you are determined to carry and use a camera put it in a bag - specifically one of the Op/Tec bags. They are neoprene and you can cut a hole on the outer end for the lens to protrude through. They are the most nondescript thing you can imagine - I can't begin to describe how non-descript they are...and if you do imagine to attract the attention of the outraged mob, they'll form a soft protective cover for the camera while you take your kicking.