Beards of the Catskills

angelina · Oct 15, 2013

A few selects from an ongoing beard-collection project I have been doing.

These guys are all from the Catskill mountains in upstate NY.

CnC very welcome!

limr · Oct 15, 2013

Great portraits. Love the look on the last one's face. It's about the reaction I'd expect from a bearded dude in the Catskills

Good capture!

angelina · Oct 16, 2013

Thanks! It's funny you mention that last guy. In reality, he was the goofiest, nicest person. A sound guy named Jim. When I asked to take his picture he asked me "I need a role! how should I look?" I said "look like an assshole!". That was his ******* face. This was his normal face.

limr · Oct 16, 2013

Great story! I don't think he pulled off "*******" exactly, but I've seen that sort of "Can I joke with these folks, or are they antique hunters from the city up for the weekend?" look on people's faces before

marlenne63 · Oct 16, 2013

Great project. I couldn't decide which one is the best

dsiglin · Oct 16, 2013

Agreed, very nice set, probably would have to go with #1 because of the lighting and embroidery on that guys shirt. Unexpected.

annamaria · Oct 16, 2013

Very nice set. Fav is first and last.

gsgary · Oct 16, 2013

Great project very nice series, i go for No1 because i like contrasty shots, but if you shot them with some nice grainy film i think they would look even better

Woodsman · Oct 16, 2013

OH I like these. My favorites are 1 and 2. What I like most about the series is I find myself looking at each one and seeing a lifetime of stories in each face. Wonderful

angelina · Oct 16, 2013

Glad their stories/personalities came through in these

Great guys who were a lot of fun to work with and get to know, who all had huge personalities.

The 1st guy against the black background with the embroidered tunic was named Thunder. when I asked if I could take his picture he said "only if you make me look hard." Thunder had me re-take it twice because he thought they were not hard enough. Thanks, Thunder.

pgriz · Oct 16, 2013

Love the pics and the story. Stick around, Angelina, we can use your eye and skill. Hope to see much more from you.

GDHLEWIS · Oct 16, 2013

Love the last one all because of that exspesion and the story just makes it so much better.
Keep it up, would love to see the collection when your done

angelina · Oct 17, 2013

GDHLEWIS said:
Love the last one all because of that exspesion and the story just makes it so much better.
Keep it up, would love to see the collection when your done

Hey thanks! I don't know if you mean that though. I am currently at around 230 beards, about 150 of which are "keepers" and maybe 40 selects. Lotsa beard all over the USA.

pgriz said:
Love the pics and the story. Stick around, Angelina, we can use your eye and skill. Hope to see much more from you.

Maybe I will, lois. Maybe I will.

The_Traveler · Oct 17, 2013

This is a great collection of beards and very well shot but, to me, the pictures are all almost the same.
Shot from the front at beard level or below, except for the clothes and some relatively small details of face and beard, there's not much information about the people.
Sorry to go upstream but.....

Lew

angelina · Oct 17, 2013

Yeah, I feel like when I am working with BnW especially (and portraits even more especially) there's a challenging middle ground to reach in having a series be not-too-homogenous, but also cohesive and nice as a "set".

It's supposed to be fairly simple doco-style portraits, and the focus is meant to be mostly/all in the face, but they do look a little too uniform esp with all those middle grays. Was noticing that when I placed them next to one another for this thread.