When does being inspired by an image become stealing the idea? Can you steal a view? When there are more digital cameras than people on the planet*, is it possible to take an original shot? Well, where there are photographers, there are disagreements. Check out the link and read the comments, which make compelling points for both sides of the row.
Today the SLR Shooting Day went off with six enthusiastic shooters, whose enthusiasm (and mine) started to wane by about two in the afternoon when what had a nice sunny day turned into a very cold foggy one. Still, some nice shots were taken, and we experimented with hyperfocal distance, thanks to my iPhone apps DOF Guide and the slightly weird DistanceCam (both free!)
The street photography portion of the day threw up some interesting dilemmas, mostly around feeling so intrusive and conspicuous. And just in the interests of transparency, above are my feeble efforts, shot with a Sigma 10-20mm (hence the wide angle distortion - which I like) and firing the on-camera flash to fill the shadow that I would have got given that I was shooting against the sun).
Well, if you need any inspiration to get on with street photography, and as therapy to get past that fear of getting in people's faces too much, check out this video of the legendary Bruce Gilden. The man has no fear!