Whether you are photographing on assignment or just for yourself, it's nice to introduce yourself, shake hands and win a person over before you use the camera. Just sayin.

I never got this gentleman's name but he was downtown, just outside the city council building enjoying a cool, early Spring afternoon. I saw him and thought his eyes were expressive. Just like everyone else I am a little nervous about approaching strangers and asking them if I can make their portrait. But the only alternative to not following through is to stand back, out of the circle of most interest, and shoot a bit wider. And without their collaboration. And that means you get less energy from your subject.  It's a tricky choice. 

There seems to be either power toward, or a detraction from, success in making the right decisions based on your core intention. At least as far as getting an interesting photograph is concerned. On this particular day I was mostly intending to get photographs that, in combination with other photographs, which would paint a collage for me about the people I come across when I'm out for a pleasant, no-agenda walk.

I guess I could have shot wider. I could have used a telephoto lens. But it was his eyes that drew me to him and that's what I thought should be emphasized in the final image. I also knew that I wanted to have the background drop as far out of focus as possible so the viewer would have no choice but to pay attention to the man's eyes. It would have been easier to stand back, shoot with an 85mm lens and a full frame camera. I would have had more control over the camera-to-subject distance. I could have kept my distance. Stayed in my own circle of comfort.

The camera I had with me was an older, cropped frame (APS-C) Sony and the lens I had on the camera was a fast 50mm. I went with what I had. If I had a bag full of lenses I could have stopped and changed to something longer but I know I would not have taken the time because all permissions from strangers feel like they come with a time constraint attached. After all, you are pulling them away from their own self-guided free time. Their own schedule. Their own safe space. So I kept the lens I arrived with. 

Whatever dialog we had together is lost to the mists of time. I try to be honest and not fawning. I might have said I was drawn to the power and calmness of his eyes. But I just as likely smiled and said I would really like to take his photograph...if he didn't mind.

With the burden of my years of commercial experience I find it nearly impossible to take only one or two frames and then to walk away. When I got back home I looked through my images for the day and saw that I'd snapped away for nine or ten frames. And, as I expected, the frames followed a familiar pattern. Good energy but a guardedness on the first few frames. Then the  subject feels like he should deliver a different pose or expression and we do that for a few frames. Finally, the subject starts to feel either bored or comfortable and drops his guard enough so that, if you are quick, you can capture something that feels authentic. That has the right energy. In nearly every encounter you know when you've hit the peak of expression and you sense, if you are awake to it, that the subject has had enough attention. Because people aren't used to being stared at by a Cyclops camera. And most people are used to a snapshot being one frame. 

The image was taken on a camera with a 3:2 aspect ratio but the tight, square crop seemed to mirror what I was thinking when I made the portrait. I think it's successful. You may not. And that's okay. As long as you have a reason other than the idea that it's wrong to crop out the top of the subject's head. 

(Just above) Here's another image from the same day. I changed lenses and was playing around with a cheap Sony zoom lens on the same cropped frame camera. This was taken with a much longer focal length. A 180mm FF equivalent. While I think the photo is okay there's a lot that falls flat. I wish I had gotten closer and asked the man in the hat to look into the lens. I wish the lens had been faster. The f5.6 aperture at the focal length I was using did a fairly good job of defocusing the background but I would have loved a stop or two less detail back behind him. 

It's interesting to me that after making one really good photo in an outing your brain kicks in and for the rest of the walk, with every image you shoot, your brain tries to replicate the feeling and the parameters of that one great shot. Your brain figures out that this is what you are looking for. And it hardly ever works out. 

It's the same thing with a studio portrait session. You have to take a lot of images while you feel each other out. As a photographer you keep trying little changes and shifts, in framing and also in conversation, and you keep looking at the images to see how the changes affect the way the camera sees the subject. At the same time, if you are doing your part right, the subject becomes more and more familiar with how you work and what you might be looking for. At a certain point you find you are both working in synch. You keep slowly but decisively moving toward a perfect expression and a perfect emotional connection--- which you try to capture. Once you both know you got the shot you might keep working on getting more; especially more based on that successfully instant you already got but what you are really doing is winding down. Making sure there's nothing more left in the creative tank. 

Then you congratulate each other and promise that, because this was so satisfying, you'll both do it again real soon. And, unless the subject is really special you'll probably never photograph together again. Well, unless you marry your muse and spend the next (however many) years together making images for each other.

I'm anxious with every encounter in the streets. Perhaps more so since witnessing a brutal attack on the trails a few months ago. But I continue to try to make photographs of strangers because it's interesting to me. I'm also nervous before every studio portrait session because you never know what's behind the curtain of your subject's personality. Will they be cooperative? Responsive? Able to relax? And will you have skill to understand and then capture what you find to be the special look individual to that person?

Everything else I could tell you about making portraits in the street or the studio is bullshit.