Street!

This weekend I was involved in an intense photography workshop focusing on taking photographs of people on the streets of Portland. It actually started on Friday with an evening meet and greet at Joni Kabana's studio, which I learned you can rent so guess what I'll be doing at some point. (Answer: Pics of Hen in a studio.) There was wine and cheese and bread and slideshows with some instruction on what was to come. The class was co-taught by Joni and my favorite photographer, Jan Sonnenmair, with special guest instructor and lighting extraordinaire, Michael Schoenholtz on hand to help with strobist.

Joni and Jan use very different techniques when photographing subjects. Joni engages her subjects, she might take some time to talk with them, and then she will probably move them to whatever interesting background is nearby and, once in place, she'll pose or direct them as needed. I ended up with a lot of portraits of people using her method. Jan is more subtle in her approach, a shoot first and ask questions later sort of method that she refers to as a dance. Her photos capture real life moments. Both are valid and both are fun to do. The group I was in shot with Jan Saturday morning, Joni in the afternoon, and the small group of us that made it out for the evening portion of the workshop shot with Michael, who was kind enough to let us Nikon users borrow his remote flash. Following are a few of my favorite pics...

Saturday morning, Pioneer Courthouse Square

Saturday morning, Occupy Portland

Saturday afternoon, Hawthorne

Deemed "best picture of the day" by Michael et al, thankyouverymuch!

Saturday evening, Burnside

Zombie, natural light - Shutter 1/80 Aperture f/2 ISO 2000 

Partygoers, TTL built-in flash - Shutter 1/80 Aperture f/2.5 ISO 1000

Love couple, Commander mode with remote flash - Shutter 1/80 Aperture f/2.0 ISO 1000

Things I learned...
As awkward as it feels to ask people to stop what they're doing to let you take a picture, Joni's style was much easier for me to mimic. I told people, who appeared a little stiff or ill at ease, that I was feeling the same way. And I was. It is intimidating to get in a stranger's face for a close up shot.

TTL stands for through the lens.

Chimping is what it is called when you take a picture and look at your LCD screen to immediately assess how the photo looks. While shooting with Jan, we were not allowed to chimp. I found this immensely frustrating. As a result of not chimping, several of my photos were over/under-exposed because I would forget in the moment to adjust my settings before taking the picture. Argh. I definitely rely on chimping too much.

To use the Commander mode with remote flash, go Custom Setting Menu > Bracketing/flash > Flash cntrl for built-in flash and select Commander mode. Of course, to do this you need to have a remote flash, which I currently do not. Before you set it to Commander mode, you need to adjust your settings so that you capture a little bit of the background. Then, when the picture is snapped, the light from the remote flash highlights your subject while your camera, set for the background, picks up the background light. It sounds sort of confusing because I'm not much of a student and specifics escape me. Here's an example of a night shot taken using the built-in flash. If interested, you can compare it to the last photo above to see the difference. As an aside, that guy was wearing a most excellent pair of skin-tight, animal print pants, took some serious balls to put those things on. My hat's off to him.

I suck at shooting from the hip. But I learned a trick! My problem has always been that when shooting without looking through the viewfinder, my camera takes too long to focus when I depress the shutter button because I don't know precisely where my camera is focusing. The solution to this is to find where you want to stand/sit/wait and manually focus your camera a certain distance away. When someone walks into the plane/field where you're focused, you take a shot. It doesn't mean you'll catch the pic you're looking for - a lot depends on the lens you are using, too - but it does mean there is a greater chance your pic or a portion of your pic will be in focus. It's almost too easy...

Crazy people you avoid might seek you out. There weren't that many people moving about Saturday morning but I still gave a wide margin around this one woman who seemed a little out of sorts. Then she saw me and came over to harass me, asking me if I wanted to take her picture - I did not - and then shoving me, while telling me she wanted to throw me "in there". I'm not sure if she was referring to the garbage can or on the tracks of the MAX line. Either way, she wasn't very fond of me even though I had done nothing to her or even around her. I repeatedly said I was sorry and got the hell out of there. It seemed the prudent thing to do.

Sometimes people you think look great don't photograph well at all. If they aren't engaged in the process and you can't help break through to them, it's going to be hard to get a picture you're happy with. There needs to be some sort of connection, this is more true for portraiture than candid shots, or you'll get a photo that's disappointing.

On Sunday...
we reviewed everyone's work. We started at 11a.m. and finished close to 5p.m. After seeing the first guy's photos, I was thinking something along the lines of "oh shit, my stuff  s u c k s." I was pretty sure I was about to be hit with the worst critique of any work ever in the existence of work critiqued. To make matters worse, my photos were the last reviewed nearly six hours after we began. By this time we were all, myself included, ready to be done. We had seen all the major players (a lot of us photographed the same people - we descended on those folks that said yes to having their pictures taken like locusts), the most used backgrounds, etc. I need naught have worried. In two words, um, my photos kicked ass. They liked 'em. They really, really liked 'em. I got props for my angles, for my layering, for my editing, for my color, and my composition. Yay, me! Lest you think me a bragger, I did have photos that didn't work, like the following:

Background is good. Composition is fine. But I'm bored. Yawn. 

First two guys I captured on my own. I didn't know what to do with them and they didn't know what to do with me. All that equals one lame picture.

Miss Dead Eyes. Not her fault, mine. Everything about this photo should work but because I didn't make a connection with her, the photo doesn't work.

She's cute but the shot looks like it was taken in a studio, which is fine but not for trying to convey a sense of location. You wouldn't look at this and think "Yep, that's Hawthorne for you," like you would with some of the other photos.

Finally, I am totally excited because Michael pulled me aside at the end and invited me to participate in 100 Strangers. With my newfound approaching people skills, I feel completely prepared to do this. All in all, this was a most excellent workshop.