Stranger: Loid

[Austin Greene]

"Hold on a minute, I'll look cool." Those were some of the first words Loid said to me when I asked if I could take his photo. Loid and I go way back. All total, we've known each other for about 5 minutes.

I met Loid while walking towards the Tenderloin area of downtown San Francisco, near the BART station. At first, I thought "wow, look at this asshole, with his bike up on the sidewalk." As it turns out, Loid's a pretty cool guy. He's been riding motorcycles since his early twenties, and is an SF regular. All in all, he's a pretty original dude. Right down to the rings of ink tattooed on his hands, and the self-made white hand emblem he puts on all his belongings.

Curious, I asked Loid what the hand meant.

"Eh, it's just a symbol."

I suppose that sometimes, things are just as they seem.


Stranger: Loid by TogaLive, on Flickr

 

[tirediron]

Nice!

 

[sashbar]

Nice. The only reason why I am thinking about creating my own photography site is to be able to give a "proper" card to a stranger. I find it very difficult to approach strangers in such a way, partly because I am a foreigner in London (even though half of London are foreigners these days). What do you say when they ask you why do want to take a picture?

 

[Designer]

What do you say when they ask you why do want to take a picture?

Well, you certainly don't want to blurt out the truth; you want their photograph to facilitate stealing their soul.

Oh, I don't know; we all have our own reasons. I've taken photographs of strangers and offered no explanation at all, and for some I've engaged them in conversation long enough that when I asked to photograph them, it was more like just a friend asking a new friend.

If you do have a good reason, have that answer ready. Compose it well, even write it up on a card if you think it would be easier, but people know when they're being lied to, so make it truthful. Say you're working on a documentary of the inhabitants of ___ City, and you need their picture to fill in some gaps in the story. Or something.

 

[Austin Greene]

Nice. The only reason why I am thinking about creating my own photography site is to be able to give a "proper" card to a stranger. I find it very difficult to approach strangers in such a way, partly because I am a foreigner in London (even though half of London are foreigners these days). What do you say when they ask you why do want to take a picture?

I always start with my name. Not my full name, just a "Hey, I'm Austin..." and go from there. I do this in every one of my photoshoots if I haven't worked with the person before, unless I'm going for a decidedly "oh crap, there's a camera looking at me" look. It has huge benefits in getting people more comfortable. I almost always ask a relevant question, like in this case how long he's been riding, what his first bike was. We chatted for a bit, I mentioned that I had my motorcycle license, but never got around to riding. I'm creating common ground, and these are things I'm genuinely curious about. It's social engineering, but it's also a genuine interest in them, and people pick up on that.

Usually by the end I'll just say, "Hey, I'm out looking for strangers to photograph today. Mind if I take your portrait?" I don't ask if I can take their "photo." A portrait is far more personal, and that is the mood I want them to bring into the image. Sometimes if it's a candid, I've already taken their photo before even speaking to them, but I still want their backstory so I go through the motions. I give them my website info, and mention that if they email me I can send them the full-res file to their shot. No B.S, no fake projects, etc.

IMO, giving someone a card goes against the point. These need to be personal experiences, not business transactions.

 

[sashbar]

Nice. The only reason why I am thinking about creating my own photography site is to be able to give a "proper" card to a stranger. I find it very difficult to approach strangers in such a way, partly because I am a foreigner in London (even though half of London are foreigners these days). What do you say when they ask you why do want to take a picture?

I always start with my name. Not my full name, just a "Hey, I'm Austin..." and go from there. I do this in every one of my photoshoots if I haven't worked with the person before, unless I'm going for a decidedly "oh crap, there's a camera looking at me" look. It has huge benefits in getting people more comfortable. I almost always ask a relevant question, like in this case how long he's been riding, what his first bike was. We chatted for a bit, I mentioned that I had my motorcycle license, but never got around to riding. I'm creating common ground, and these are things I'm genuinely curious about. It's social engineering, but it's also a genuine interest in them, and people pick up on that.

Usually by the end I'll just say, "Hey, I'm out looking for strangers to photograph today. Mind if I take your portrait?" I don't ask if I can take their "photo." A portrait is far more personal, and that is the mood I want them to bring into the image. Sometimes if it's a candid, I've already taken their photo before even speaking to them, but I still want their backstory so I go through the motions. I give them my website info, and mention that if they email me I can send them the full-res file to their shot. No B.S, no fake projects, etc.

IMO, giving someone a card goes against the point. These need to be personal experiences, not business transactions.

I will definitely borrow the "portrait" part, thanks, it is a clever idea. As for the card, I guess it is just an easy way to direct them to the website, otherwise it is bit too long to explain.

 

[fjrabon]

Yeah, I usually say "I'm putting together a series on the people of Atlanta, what makes the city tick, you know, telling the story from the citizens' point of view." I also add "and I can print one out for you right here!" in as well, and that often seals the deal. Yeah, it's kind of gimmicky, but I freaking love the Fuji Instax printer. Press a couple buttons and boom, they've got a polaroid, and you've still got the full res digital file on a high quality mirrorless camera. I will also usually scotch tape a business card on the back of it too. I've gotten jobs that way.

 

[Austin Greene]

Yeah, I usually say "I'm putting together a series on the people of Atlanta, what makes the city tick, you know, telling the story from the citizens' point of view." I also add "and I can print one out for you right here!" in as well, and that often seals the deal. Yeah, it's kind of gimmicky, but I freaking love the Fuji Instax printer. Press a couple buttons and boom, they've got a polaroid, and you've still got the full res digital file on a high quality mirrorless camera. I will also usually scotch tape a business card on the back of it too. I've gotten jobs that way.

How are you sending the images to your phone and then to the Instax? Via wifi on the camera body?

 

[fjrabon]

Yeah, I usually say "I'm putting together a series on the people of Atlanta, what makes the city tick, you know, telling the story from the citizens' point of view." I also add "and I can print one out for you right here!" in as well, and that often seals the deal. Yeah, it's kind of gimmicky, but I freaking love the Fuji Instax printer. Press a couple buttons and boom, they've got a polaroid, and you've still got the full res digital file on a high quality mirrorless camera. I will also usually scotch tape a business card on the back of it too. I've gotten jobs that way.

How are you sending the images to your phone and then to the Instax? Via wifi on the camera body?

you can do it that way, if you don't have a fuji camera, but with the X100T, I can actually just send it directly to the instax. It's spitting out the polaroid in about 10 seconds, including menu time.

From what I've heard the fuji instax phone app doesn't work super great if you have more than a handful of photos, for your phone, since it has to load your phone's entire photo library each time (seems like fuji didn't think that through) before you can select which photo to print, so I don't know that I'd buy an instax unless I had a fuji camera that directly connected to it. I haven't tried the phone app yet, I downloaded it, but just never have had a reason to use it. I always just print directly from the X100T.