Photographing People

My key reason for embarking on this course is a realization that I am far more comfortable photographing things than people.  I am by nature a little shy and too happy in my own company.  Whilst not necessarily a bad thing this is not conducive to creating social aware engaging photography.  So in the spirit of if it doesn't kill you, it is good for you, I headed out on Sunday to do some "people" photography, i.e. specifically hunt down and photograph interesting looking people.

I set myself the goal to be up front and not to shy away from situations in which the subject was aware of me.  I wanted the person(s) to be the subject of the photograph, not simply incidental to the scene I was capturing, so I would have to get close in.  I took a small (and new) camera, a Samsung NX20 mirrorless compact together with a selection of pancake lenses, a 16mm, 20mm, and 30mm, plus a 60mm short telephoto.  This camera with the pancake lenses is tiny and so attracts far less attention than my 5D2 plus 24-105mm lens that would be my normal kit.

As I anticipated I found myself using the 60mm lens (90mm FFE) more than the wide to normal pancake lenses, clearly I was still not quite ready for the very close up, however, I got some interesting shots.  I benefited from walking into a large city centre event, the handworker festival.  Pretty much every weekend there is a fest somewhere in Munich that will involve the wearing of leather trousers and much bottom slapping, beer drinking merriment.  This was not different...

As I discussed in my previous entry, I plan to shoot a long documentary of Munich's people, gradually building up a portfolio of images that speak to this wonderfully diverse city and it's residents or visitors.  This is a start and illustrates the range of activity and personality that a Sunday afternoon can deliver.

As mentioned at the start I still found myself shying away a little and resorting to the telephoto, however, I was far more comfortable than I expected and quite enjoyed the process.  Perhaps it was my rather random wandering and absence of a theme, but I did find that I lacked the sense of purpose that I have with Landscape. I am used to developing a concept, shooting the concept and then delivering the concept.  With Social Documentary I expect the process to be far more serendipitous, rather than select a predefined theme, perhaps it will emerge as I gather material and experience.

I have processed this set of images to B&W.  I have not made any firm decision about this yet, but I am considering working the whole course in B&W.  I have a few reasons for this.  Firstly I simply want to explore the medium and discover what I can do without colour.  I am drawn to strong high contrast colour and this will be a chance to consider more the form and texture of images rather than the colour.  Secondly I want to make this course in part a study of Robert Frank, his work and his technique.  I do not want to copy him, but let his world view and aesthetic style influence my own.  For this B&W will be a better choice.  Finally B&W is very much more forgiving of exposure, fast moving street photography does not allow the considered careful approach that I have been taking with landscape.  The jury is still out on this one.