[Leica] Re: uncooperative women......

["BIRKEY, DUANE" <dbirkey@hcjb.org.ec>]

Many times people will tell you that they don't like to have their 
picture taken.  Usually there is some feature that is the obvious culprit 
but sometimes you need to ask to find that they like how the color of 
their hair to seem lighter or darker, they don't like their ears, cheeks, 
chin or that their head is bigger than their husbands etc. etc. etc.

Usually I can find a way to minimize it with lighting, posing or choice 
of lens.  A woman has a really long neck,  solution: shoot try to shoot 
down as much as possible and use a long lens.  Long nose, use long lens 
and no profile shots.  Ears that stick out, shoot three quarters and 
cover with hair.  Double chin, extend neck from body and lift chin up.  
You can put big headed women behind their husbands to make them appear 
smaller.

I've had to take photos of women who freeze when they see a camera.  One 
woman's head jerks to her right and begins shaking the moment you lift 
the camera to the eye.   Solution, put her on the right side of her 
husband so her head moves towards him, don't look through the camera, use 
a tripod and remote release and talk the entire time.  

In Marc's case, seeing how she kept looking at the bandleader, I would 
have tried to move my position closer to the band leader so she would 
have had to look elsewhere or look in my direction.  The other method is 
to keep the camera at eye-level all of the time and eventually she will 
have to look somewhere in your direction.   Granted, she won't be able to 
relax, might forget words or sing a wrong note and she might never speak 
to you again,  (But if she's a friend of your ex-wife, that might not be 
all bad.)  But she will either have to face the other direction the 
entire time or will eventually ignore you.  You could also use a spot 
light to effectively blind her into not seeing you working, or you can 
ask two other friends to sit on opposite sides of the stage with cameras 
so she has no safe place to look.  She might end up looking like a 
cornered wolverine in the pictures though.... not good.

Sometimes close-up profiles work out nice for singers if you can find a 
nice side angle for lighting.  In this case seeing how she didn't want to 
look in the direction of the camera, profile might be the best option 
unless she doesn't like her nose.

I would not show bad prints period.  You merely reinforce the opinion 
that they take bad pictures and you do too.

I'm not sure what lens you used but I would try to get a hold of a fast 
135 or 200 for the job so you are as far away as possible.  That should 
help more than anything.  I would wear a dark shirt, find the darkest 
spot in the audience and I would also try to hide behind a couple heads 
if possible.  If that doesn't work, you could try to play hide & seek, if 
possible, trying to move around to different spots so she is never sure 
where you are at.  But I would really try to find out why she doesn't 
like to have her picture taken so you can avoid taking shots that she'll 
hate.

Duane Birkey