[Leica] two minute portraits

[leicaslacker at gmail.com (kyle cassidy on the lug)]

I've agonized over portraits, and I find myself doing that all the time. 
I'll get in a room look around and just ... blank ... and start 
over-thinking things. So a few years ago I got the idea of trying to do two 
minute portraits. Not headshots, but actual environmental with a series of 
people. We'd make a deal that whenever we ran into one another, I'd do 
something with whatever was around in less than 120 seconds. New York 
klezmer music sensation Sxip Shirey is one of those people. His DIY attitude 
with making music with whatever he finds lying around fits in very well with 
that idea and when I ran into him in Manhattan last night we did this -- 
flash on a cord held off camera with one hand.

  http://www.kylecassidy.com/lj/2010/sxip-nyc.jpg

The project does a couple of things -- one is to make me continually 
paranoid, searching out architectural features where ever I am, another is 
to make me constantly deconstruct other people's portraits thinking "why did 
they choose that light? what did they use here that I can learn from?"

And by throwing off all the little things, it makes me realize what the BIG 
things are that are most easily missed (focus, background, focus).

And you should spend two minutes watching Sxip play the harmonica -- and 
before the video's over, take a portrait of someone in the room -- make it 
good:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbpOoTEFD_g

I should probably put up a web page of all the 2 minute portraits....

kc