Pensive Stranger
There’s a very good chance the same fears we share about photographing strangers will never go away. Our hands shake, our heart beats faster, we’re constantly turning our head down pretending we’re reviewing an image, we look up again hoping our subject hasn’t made a strong eye contact to a point where they would instantly diminish the little confidence we already have. The only thing we have going for us through this struggle is knowing that we only have to do it enough times to lessen the fear of it.
For me, I associate the experience of photographing strangers to attending a gym for the first time. There’s that ever perpetual fear perhaps because we don’t want to get injured which is generally a result of not taking the initiative to at least read up on what the ideal approach for a newbie would be. But above that, there’s nervousness in attending because we formulate this idea that all eyes are on us. In spite of the heavy grunts or the panting that emanates from everyone who’s running faster than they should be on the treadmill, believe me when I tell you that unless you’re wearing something flirtatious, people are more into themselves in the gym then you would think.
What does that mean to you as a photographer whose striving to get over their fear of photographing strangers? It’s about being consistent. If you do both the gym going and photographing strangers enough, your mind won’t wander so much on what everyone else is thinking about you and allow you to focus more on what you want to say about them through your photos.
Thomas Leuthard has been a street photographer whose work and intelligent articles on the genre I’ve really been enjoying. His opinions and advice are not just limited to street photograph per say but they’re certainly loaded with great advice on how to better approach this act of photographing strangers.
As for this photograph, it was one of those moments where I managed to take it without the person even realizing until he saw me walking away reviewing what I had shot. It was in Brooklyn, it was 85 degrees, it was late in the evening and him as much as I were anxious to get home. The difference at least from my perspective is that he seemed to have a lot more on his mind than just wanting to go home.
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Nameless. Faceless
His name would have been just as important as understanding his plight but from my perspective, all I could unscramble from how he laid on the floorboard was thinking how thankful he must be for having found a tranquil spot in an often bustling setting.
We both happen to be at the South Street Seaport just simply in different locations. Having walked the popular tourist attraction for 2 hours, I took a rest on the 3rd level which is where you’d get the highest quality panoramic view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Yet somehow my point of interest wasn’t so much with what I assume everyone else was looking at, it was more on what everyone was avoiding to acknowledge which was this faceless person.
One of the few subjects I’m reluctant to photograph is homeless people. I think they’re frequently misunderstood yet wonderful subjects but somehow I would feel more comfortable having the opportunity to know them first before taking away the very little they already have.
Most of the time they linger around public places so it’s technically legal to photograph them but the question of whether it’s degrading to their characters comes to play. I would like for them to feel that they as a person have been noticed and acknowledged and not just treated as another photo opportunity where you can increase it’s appeal by converting what you shot to black & white and labeling it art.
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