Another Practitioner of the Sneaker Zoom

My good friend Woody Marshall down at the Macon Telegraph was talking with one of my students a few years ago and used the phrase “sneaker zoom.” The student had a full compliment of lenses, from 17 mm to 200 mm, in her bag but she needed to get closer to her subjects, so he told her to use her “sneaker zoom” – just walk up to them, get close.

I’ve loved the phrase ever since that day.

Now, Jonathan Castner has delved into a recent post over at The Online Photographer that featured a bunch of Peter Turnley’s images.Castener scanned through the EXIF data to see how Turnley was making images and discovered he’s a sneaker zoomer, too – almost everything was shot between 24 mm and 32 mm.

What a cool idea and a great way to learn. You won’t always get the EXIF data online as a lot of sites strip it off, but sometimes, you get lucky and it’s there. Go look.