Portraits
“Can you take a picture of me?” I get this request quite often. Especially at parties. One time I couldn’t make a step without being asked that question. I just packed my gear and left.
I like taking portraits of strangers so I do feel I have to do something in return. But my heart is not in it. I am looking for spontaneous photos where people are busy among themselves. When people notice you, they start to pose and the photo is then reduced to a mere obligatory snapshot with the obligatory thumbs up and forced happy faces. Sometimes it does result in an interesting portrait but most of the time it doesn’t.
Often I still publish such photos because it still creates attention on social media. I have enough followers in my municipality that there’s always somebody that recognizes a person in my pictures and then tags that person. I publish these photo’s bundled in one post so it’s clear they are less valuable to me than the photos I publish one by one.
Anyway, last week I struggled. I was at the opening of a skate park. As a street photographer I like dynamic scenes but this was more like sports photography which I don’t have much experience in, nor much interest. So although I took some OK photos I wasn’t happy with the end result. I was ready to pack my gear and leave. And then came that question: “Can you take a picture of me?”
The question came from a skater whom I took some action photos some minutes before. The youngster definitively had personality but I was in doubt. Will this just be another snapshot? But I realised it was just the second request that day so after some hesitation I agreed and unpacked the cameras again.
But this time it was more than just simple snapshot. He wanted to have a portrait with the skatepark in the background. So we walked back to that place. In the mean time, though I had some time to think about the scene that I wanted to make.
Taking the time to think what would be a good scene really made the difference. By the time I started shooting for the portrait, I already knew what kind of picture I was going for. The result was a satisfying picture and a changed perspective on that day.
