hi dave
i love taking my speed graphic and a lumedyne flash out on some random location - business where people are doing "stuff" : police-dispatcher, auto mechanic, furniture repair guy, junk-man, coffee roaster, you name it ... i find it easy to be just a fly on the wall. i usually expose tmax 100 at about 30th at f16 and use the flash as a fill at about 50 or 100 ws. i also like doing random portrait stuff with either a soft focus lens on a 5x7 camera in my studio ( read cluttered basement these days ) or the same thing with paper negatives either shot on 5x7 or 8x10. unless they are taken outdoors, the paper negatives need about 1800ws of light ( 3 pops of 2 lights at 300ws ) to get a good enough exposure to either scan or print. i've an image in my gallery from a paper negative shot that way ...
when i get the courage i'll bring the 8x10 ( or probably the 5x7 ) to do location portraits but i know it won't be easy!
-john