Building a shot by sticking around and trying stuff out instead of "hit and run." Just rummaging around in the photography bin...

I've been trying to pay attention to how other photographers shoot when they are out in public places. Some "lock in" and shoot frame after frame from one position with one crop. Almost like they are afraid they haven't "set the hook" and the photo is going to get away from them. Some shooters are methodical and pre-programmed. You can see their brains working as they shoot. It's like they are following a formula: wide shot, medium shot, tight shot, low angle, high angle, done. But the one's who I think might be missing the mark are the hit-and-run photographers who whip their cameras up to their eyes, grab one frame and then walk off trying to look like nothing ever happened. Perhaps routinely driven away by fear and trepidation...

I really like to build shots and I guess I have a bit of the old formula in my brain when I go out. But my formula isn't all about getting higher or lower or lefter or righter, it's more about peeling the image down. I'll see something I like in a wide shot; like the young woman near the center who is eating ice cream while trying really hard to ignore the amorous couple sitting right next to her. And  the look on her face is classic. She looks angry. It's a look beyond concentration. She's really not happy. That's the scene where I start but not where I end up.

In the retrospect afforded by having these images in a triptych over my desk for years I've come to like the wide shot the best but I remember in the year or two after I took these images in Piazza Navona (Rome) that I liked the tight shot at the bottom were the woman is separated from all the people around her. 

There is nothing magical about these shots, although the tourists with the guidebook in the right corner make me smile; as does the man with the newspaper across his knee on the left, bottom corner. But I do like them all because they reference a time and place in which people lived more outdoors. Where the urban scape was lived in. Not like my city where everyone rushes around in cars and spends time in the urban scape only for events like concerts in the park. But not an everyday thing.

I was hardly invisible at the time I shot these images. I was using a Mamiya 6 medium format, film camera and I had a camera bag hanging over one shoulder. I was walking by and something in my head prompted me to stop. I guess it was the feeling of depth provided by the groupings of people in layers. And with an angry women with ice cream right in the middle. I went for the wide shot. 

But I didn't walk away. I tried to figure out what it was about the scene that drew me in and I decided that it was the contrast of the "happy' couple and the dour ice cream women. It seemed distinctly like a juxtaposition you don't see in "too cool" Austin. At least not often.  So I stepped in and framed the shot a bit tighter. And shot a couple frames. 

I liked the tighter crop but I stayed around to see if one more variation would add to my appreciation of the scene. I wanted a shot of the woman isolated with her thoughts and her ice cream. Maybe it works okay. But really, after looking at the images for years it was the initial shot, the wide shot, that I think is the keeper. 

I guess my point is that if you are motivated enough to stop and look at a scene it certainly makes a lot of sense to spend some time with it and explore a bit. I know many people would find it uncomfortable to get closer and closer but nobody really paid any attention to me. I guess most of us assume we're standing out when really the people in front of me might just have thought I was trying to get a good image of the fountain. After all, isn't that what most tourists with cameras do? 

 

I'm happy with the way a standard lens worked on a square framed, medium format camera. It's elegant. I guess these days I might be tempted to take a zoom lens, stand in one place and get the three different looks with a twist of the zoom ring. I'm sure the images would be fine but they definitely would create the same result as using one focal length and then zooming with one's feet. There is also more friction of the process when putting yourself closer to your subject. At some point you might step over the line....

And yeah, I know. It's called "Gelato." From Tre Scalini. They make pretty decent gelato...

Let's take a break from the gear and talk about...photographs.

 

Michelle in the studio. 

I like this photo because it's calm and her stare is direct. Just on the verge of being questioning.

When I scanned the negative I was intending to crop out the black frame lines, the arrow and the small part of an adjacent frame. But as I looked at the raw image I felt like the added details conveyed the idea that this was captured in a continuing stream of images instead of being a "one off." 

It's fun to remember that I was so hands on with the negatives and generally marked small arrows in the space between frames to remind myself that my first thoughts on seeing the contact sheets were:

Print This One.

This is a photograph of my friend Michelle. Over the twenty some years that we've known each other she's been one of the muses who have kept me interested in photography. While I have cast her in a number of print advertisements most of the photos I show of Michelle here come from the informal and relatively unplanned photo shoots we've done over the years just for fun. 

I might be toying around with a new way to light portraits and I'll call and see if she's available for a session in the near future. She's always interested not in photography, per se, but in how the psychology of a portrait sitting works. By working with each other in a close collaboration I think we both came to the same conclusion a long time ago. A good portrait session is really a conversation with someone you'd like to get to know a lot better. Someone different enough from you to bring a perspective about some things that you'd just never thought of before. 

It's also a chance to be beautiful in a safe space and to admire and document beauty in a reciprocally safe space. I know that many people think there is often an awkward, almost predatory angle to photographing beautiful people but it's something I wouldn't dream of allowing in my studio. The lifeguard for the studio is my sweet wife who is generally around on the days and evenings we photograph. Our house is 12 steps from the studio and it more or less mandates complete transparency in my work. Not that I would have it any other way. Honest intention means so much less anxiety.

Michelle and B. have known each other for years and get along well. We've started nearly every shoot with Michelle arriving at the house first, spending some time catching up with B. then selecting an outfit and heading out to the studio. It's a very comfortable, almost family-like relationship. 

It's that transparency and familiarity that make the space we photograph in feel very safe and comfortable. We can literally and metaphorically let our hair down...

When we start to photograph the camera work usually occurs in between conversations about life, loss, happiness, dreams and the feeling of being connected. Austin is a small town and we both know dozens and dozens of the same people. We continually cross reference people I think Michelle should know and she connects me with people who she thinks need to be photographed. 

We've more or less grown from youthful exuberance into calmer adulthood together and we've got the photographs to show the progression of time and experience. 

I hate doing "quick" photo sessions. I like to sink into session slowly and build images step by step. The course of the conversation will bring up a happy thought or a thoughtful look and that will engender an expression I find interesting. A look I want to share. I take note of the expression and the body language and try to capture it if I can. Sometimes I'll show Michelle an image I liked by showing her the screen on the back of the camera and we'll work to get back to that expression if we've lost it. 

Sometimes the lighting works and sometimes my experiments go awry. It really doesn't matter if it works or not because every "failure" is a learning point. An intersection that pushes me away from something that doesn't work and pulls me toward different lighting designs that work better. But always  in the service of making the person in front of the camera look as beautiful and interesting as I can. 

It seemed somehow easier in the film days. A shared black and white Polaroid was a real, physical manifestation of the evolution of the work. The pauses to load a new roll of film were like a natural cadence for the shoot. The ever growing pile of spent film was an indicator of the time and energy spent. A marker of the arc of the session. 

I wonder how other people approach portrait shoots. It would be interesting to know...