Quentin Mui (@quentinmui.photos) is a Chinese born, Australian street photographer based in New York City who has been shooting photography on and off for the better part of the last 10 years. “I only recently discovered my love for elevating the everyday/mundane moments into personal and relatable stories through street photography,” he explains. We came across this street basketball photo he captured with his Sony Alpha 7C and Sony 50mm f/1.2 G Master and connected with him to learn more. Keep reading as he shares his story behind the shot and see his complete kit for street photography in What’s In My Bag: A Sony Alpha Kit For Bold Street Photography & More.

Sony Alpha 7C. Sony 50mm f/1.2 G Master. 1/500-sec., f/1/2, ISO 2500

See how street photographer Quentin Mui captured this with his favorite compact combination – the Sony Alpha 7C and Sony 50mm f/1.2 G Master.

I love this shot as it's a timely moment that was captured when NYC was in a state of limbo given current challenges surrounding COVID. It's a moment of escape that so many of us were struggling to find given social restrictions that were at play or recommended to society these days. The fence and the Manhattan Bridge in the background top it off nicely, providing the perfect balance of depth within this urban setting.

The Scene

This was a shot taken just before Christmas last year. It had been raining all day in NYC and come nightfall, a beautiful and eerie cover of fog had descended on the city. Walking along the East River that night, the fog provided an amazing blanket of mood overlooking the water. The Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges both looked amazingly ominous that evening, standing tall through the haze, complimented by the local fisherman that were scattered around the area. The pathway between the two bridges is known for its public exercise facilities and is popular with the local Chinese community who practice their dance and tai chi, or runners who pass by on their downtown loops. The basketball courts there are always busy and provide a wonderful vantage point to a spot of people watching by the water.

The Gear

For this shot, I used my new Sony Alpha 7C and the Sony 50mm f/1.2 G Master. The spot tracking capabilities in the new Alpha cameras are just mind blowingly quick and reliable and proved effective even when shooting these basketballers who were moving quickly, while also shooting through a fence. The f/1.2 aperture allows me to bring in a lot of light while managing for the overall ISO compensation in cam. I don't typically shoot all my shots at 1.2, however the scene on this particular night was quite dark, I needed to maintain a fast shutter, and I find that the fall off on the 50mm f/1.2 to be quite manageable when used to capture environmental scenes.

The Shot

Being a street photographer, the vast majority of my work is handheld so it's truly a process of managing light vs. motion. Given how dimly lit the area was, it was imperative that I prioritized exposing the shot well enough to recover in post. To do this, I decided to open up the aperture to 1.2 to let as much light in as possible, and set the ISO to 2500. I try to keep ISO below 3K where possible as this helps ensure the files are as clean as possible when I edit them in LR/PS. The second priority was ensuring the action being captured was sharp. Setting the shutter speed to 1/500-sec. tends to get me the results that I want for most street scenes that I find myself shooting in.

The Edit

Lightroom is my weapon of choice for the vast majority of my edits and have found myself using Photoshop less and less since Adobe released the latest updates which sees huge improvements from a masking and selection standpoint. For my work, I do tend to lean heavier on the cooler tones by pushing a bluey teal in my highlights and a purple within the shadows. Luminosity masks are a staple in my post production process as I find them to be a useful tool to help guide the user's eyes through any given scene.

See more of Quentin Mui’s work on Instagram @quentinmui.photos.