The Photographer In Your Face

I talked about The Oakville Camera Club’s Exploration # 37 “Strangers Up Close And Personal” in my last post but there’s more!

This teaching event is all about shooting street photography but with the twist that the photographer must make some sort of personal connection with the subject.

So how do you go about walking up to complete strangers and asking if you can take their photo?

There are a lot of excellent YouTube videos about how to do this and how to get better at doing it as well. Not everyone is going to say yes. When I went out on Saturday afternoon of the 10 or 12 people I stopped only two said no. That’s over an 80 per cent success rate and the two who said no were very gracious about it.

It helps to have practiced your approach and what you’re going to say.

For me at 75 I look old (I once looked beautiful but that’s a different story) and I dress down a bit with a camera around my neck held in my hands and a messenger style camera bag slung across my shoulder. So I am anything but confrontational and there’s no doubt that I am a photographer.

I walk directly into the path of approaching subjects. I don’t wear sunglasses. I put on the biggest smile I can muster. I don’t scare them by coming from the side or from behind them but straight on. I don’t block their path to walk past me but as soon as we make eye contact I start to talk.

Mostly I’ll just say something like “Hi I’m a photographer with the Oakville Camera Club and one of our assignments is to shoot photos of people today here in Oakville.”

This works amazingly well.

Sometimes I have to add I saw you and you look amazing. “It’s (fill in the blank..your sunglasses…your sense of style…your look) that would make for such a great image.”

This almost always seals the deal.

Another of the You Tube street photographers starts of by saying something like “Hi I’m a documentary photography and I’m documenting what’s happening today here in ___________ and could I get your portrait?”

He’s very successful with this approach.

Now there are some famous street photographers who don’t engage with their subjects and a few who are even somewhat confrontational even a few who use flash all the time.

Tatiana Hopper is one of the best young You Tube commentators on photographer. I recommend watching all of her videos but the one “Bruce Gilden: When Street Photography Goes Too Far?” is both excellent and challenging.