If you have not been working with a tripod all along it is a sure-fire way to lose spontaneity with the portraits. You will be spending too much time either adjusting the tripod or the subject to fit where the camera is pointing.
You either need to gain trust and get to know these kids or photograph them interacting together. Either way it is a tall order. Environmental cues can have an impact as well. What they are wearing and the location can help tell the story. While shooting them see if they can tell you stories - they need to see you as a friend and a listening ear rather than some guy taking pictures. It is less about posing and more about people skills to capture the kind of thing you are describing. You might even consider small groups of friends rather than totally isolating single subjects. At any rate, you need them to forget about the camera and interact with you and/or others with them. -- Bruce Sent from my iPad > On Sep 23, 2014, at 5:20 AM, Eric Weir <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I’m serving as volunteer photodocumentarian for a youth development project > in the community in which I worked before retiring. The project brings Emory > University students together with middle and high school age youth from this > extremely diverse low-income community around storytelling—collecting > stories, composing stories, presenting stories; stories of the participating > youth themselves—many are refugees and have dramatic stories to tell; stories > of significant adults in the community; and through the latter stories of the > community. > > The director of the project has decided he wants decent, interesting > portraits of the youth for an assignment he wants to give them. He has a > model, a wonderful book of simple, interesting, and beautiful portraits of > high school youth done by a professional photographer, Dawoud Bey. > <http://www.dawoudbey.net/index.php/photographs/class-pictures/> I did the > best I could without notice last week. I spent the hour and a half of the > session getting in the faces of individual students. Gradually the students > I got comfortable with what I was doing. I have not finished processing the > images yet, but I sense that there are going to be very few that I would > consider adequate for the purpose. > > I think I’m going to have to do something different this week, which is the > last opportunity to get the portraits before they are needed. I’m thinking of > taking a tripod, setting it up somewhere it the room in which the project > meets, and pulling students out one-by-one. That is going to be challenging > enough, but I have no idea what to do to get interesting photos, photos that > are at least somewhat revealing of the character of the subjects, once I have > the kids in front of the camera. > > I am frankly intimidated by the director’s model, the Dawoud Bey book. No way > am I going to be able to do anything lie what he has done, but something like > what he has done is what is wanted/needed. Suggestions would be appreciated. > > Thanks, > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Eric Weir > Decatur, GA USA > [email protected] > > "Our world is a human world." > > - Hilary Putnam > > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
