RE: [Leica] Human Traffic

[Paul Chefurka <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>]

You've described *precisely* the technique I use, Johhny, including the bit
about looking around and framing a few other scenes... "Nope, that idea was
no good, let's see if there's actually an interesting picture around here
somewhere...dum de dum de dum... nope nothing over there... nothing over
there either... well maybe my first idea was better, even if that guy is
standing there click!"

You're right about it feeing a bit sneaky, but as you say - it gets the job
done with alarming regularity :-)  Practice that body language, everyone!

Paul Chefurka

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Johnny Deadman [mailto:deadman@jukebox.demon.co.uk]
>Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 10:51 AM
>To: LUG
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Human Traffic

>SOLUTION -- you remove the camera from the eye and as you do 
>make sure your
>viewfinder eye is focused on something BEYOND them and a few 
>degrees off, as
>if you were shooting a tree or something about ten feet behind 
>them and two
>to the side, and haven't even noticed your main subject. Ted's 
>body language
>tip is a good one here. IMPORTANT do not under any 
>circumstances make eye
>contact during this phase of the process or you will be in 
>danger of blowing
>the whole thing.
>
>If there actually is something there it's even better but it is not
>necessary for this trick to work. The subject will 
>automatically look behind
>them to see what you were actually shooting. To add to the 
>illusion, you can
>look all around you and frame some other stuff up as if searching for
>another shot... all the time completely ignoring your main 
>subject, who by
>now will be annoyed that you do not find him/her as 
>interesting as everyone
>else. Now you return to your non-existent tree, check it out 
>once more, and
>put the camera back to your eye.
>
>It is embarrassing how well this works. I always feel a bit 
>ashamed, but
>hey.