Eric,
Other people have already made very interesting suggestions.
So, I would just add what I would have done in your situation.
First of all, as people have said, you want to clearly tell the director
that you will not reproduce those photos, but will do your best, and that
will be in your own style. In many cases the impression that person would
get from your photos depends on the expectations. So, if he keeps them
low, that would be better in the end (for everybody).
And don't worry too much, - they cannot expect from you things that are
impossible.
Second, I don't know about you, but I usually have problems setting up
portraits (directing the poses, etc.). I am much better with "candid"
portraits, taken when people were busy with whatever they were doing.
So, in the situation you have, I would consider shooting during
some of the activities that these students are doing. The faces would
be more natural and not much strained.
You wouldn't get that direct look into the camera, - but I don't think you
actually need that for the purpose of your project.
Even if you end up having a dedicated portrait session, consider various
options (including those suggested by others) to avoid "static" poses.
If people are moving naturally, they tend to be less tense in their
facial expressions and overall poses.
For shooting like that, outdoors setting might be better. But if it is
indoors and the room is not well lit to use just the ambient light, you
might consider using a flash that is turned straight up, if the ceiling is
sufficiently reflective, to the side opposite of the window, or to the
back, i.e. 180 degrees away from the subject (with either TTL or in-flash
Automatic setting for any of these flash orientations).
I would use a longer focal length (at least 70, but probably even 100-135
on APS-C, and a wide-open aperture for the shallow DOF.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!
Igor
On 23 Sep 2014, at 13:20, Eric Weir <[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
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.
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