I'm pretty certain this is the only portrait I've ever shared. And amongst the first I've ever taken, to be honest. And I want to prepare you for more in the future, as it's something I fell in love with in Bali. Now, during the workshop, even though we were blessed with mostly incredible weather for landscape photography, when conditions weren't ideal we would wander around the villages and local markets looking for something, or someone, interesting to photograph. We were taught how to say "may I take your photo?" in Indonesian, and the vast majority of people asked were delighted to participate. I found that most people act quite different when they know they are being photographed, and I learned that the best photos were typically taken once the subject became accustomed to my presence, possibly even bored by it, and started acting like their natural selves again. For this reason I would often pretend I was done photographing them, thank them, drift away a bit before taking more photos from a distance. One of my favorite parts was to show them the photo afterwards and see their eyes and smile light up with admiration of their own image.
"The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do." -Andy Warhol
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2023
|