Location class - photograph a stranger
On our last location class we had to photograph interesting looking (highly subjective i would say) strangers on the streets. To not make it too easy there were few rules. No students, outside campus, avoid busy streets and George Square ( so basically all the places where you most likely meet interesting people. As part of the task we had to prepare several questions we would ask strangers. Our questions: - How are you today? (classic ice breaker) - Do you mind if we take few pictures of you and send you them later on your email? ( so they could also get something from it) - What do you do?/ Are you a student? (to find out more about our model and get the most of his/her personality on the photographs) - What do you think about those pictures? (so they can see what kind of pictures we took of them and maybe they don’t like it or would like to change something) - Which profile is your favourite? ( for example I have my fav profile and don’t like when someone is taking picture of the “wrong” one)
~~~~~~~~~~TIP!~~~~~~~~~~~
Compliments are the key!
Tell them you are looking for interesting looking people and they got your attention. Compliment their outfit, makeup, hair or something they have with them. Keep complimenting them during photo shooting and don’t forget to ask about those things (i.e. where they got it from?) They will feel special and more likely agree to take pictures of them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first attempt wasn’t very successful. We asked construction worker and he was really happy to model. Unfortunately his supervisor or some sort of boss came soon after yelling at everybody. I managed to take one good picture. Here it is.
As we walked around I noticed a man who was standing next to his black motorbike. He was wearing black clothes and I thought it would look great on the pictures. His name is Kieran and he is a tattoo artist. He said it happened before that someone asked him on the street to model. No wonder why, he looks really cool!
B&W looks much better here in my opinion. Not far from there I saw a girl with a lovely pastel colour outfit. Siobhan works in fashion industry and she studied event management. It was her first time modeling but we both had a nice fun time taking pictures. She was trying different poses when asked and smiling a lot.
My third model was Sophie. Graphic designer who was working at the cafe. What make her looking interesting is her long curly ginger hair. She had black top and scarf that matched the look. I had big problem with choosing only 3 pictures of her as she looked great on most pictures. I tried to get again different perspective, angle or light. Finally decided to upload 4 pictures of Sophie.
I thought it will be more challenging to ask strangers but I guess having a “big” camera and mentioning “college task” makes it easier. Also being there in group of two or three helps. But its same as with anything else.... the first step - here first “Hi” is the hardest, if you do the first step, rest comes easy.
