Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/10/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I'm a mode shifter. My first choice is no interaction If they notice me and interact, I switch to portrait mode This gets me implied consent, or I stop and go away Occasionally, they relapse to candid ric On Oct 6, 2014, at 4:12 AM, mitcha at mac.com wrote: > Jayanand, > > Not speaking about taking the backs of people, my feeling is that the > issue goes deeper than people going back to doing what they were after you > after the photographer asks permission. While I am sure that the method > you espouse works for you, it eliminates, or at least potentially > compromises, a whole range of pictures, of which an iconic example is > HCB?s shot of a man jumping over a puddle. No matter how much the > photographer becomes ?a part of the scene,? the idea of ?depiction? > becomes largely compromised. Look at the photography of Moriyama Daido -- > and also at some of the videos of him shooting what he calls ?no finder > shots? by just pointing his small p&s camera (formerly a Ricoh GR1 or > GR21) at the subject. > > The Moriyama example also highlights the point that is not an issue if > ?Eastern? vs ?Western? approaches to street photography. I live in Bangkok > where it?s perhaps even easier to photograph people in the street than in > most of India ? and, since I speak the language I can communicate with > everyone ? but, when I want to depict life, I would not want to ask > permission. Better to do the Moriyama-type no finder shot. Here?s a link > for downloading a 30-shot portfolio from my Bangkok Hysteria book project, > which you may be interested in looking at for some examples: > http://bit.ly/1zWPzwl > > ?Mitch > > > >> Subject: [Leica] IMGs: French Accent (Portfolio) >> From: jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj) >> Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2014 11:56:57 +0530 >> References: <2CA89E21-E91C-46B7-A854-C6E87205AF79 at mac.com> >> Mitch, >> This is where we differ - I think that without eye contact, interactions >> with strangers on the street lose a lot of their pizzaz, and any chance >> whatsoever of "seeing the soul of the subject". In the same breath, I >> would >> also add that, IMHO, seeing the face of human beings, 99.9% of the time, >> is >> far preferable to seeing their backs! >> >> Asking permission of the subject, taking a couple of shots and showing it >> to them works very well in India - because, by and large, once you do >> this, >> they lose their self consciousness and go back to doing what they were >> doing, and forget that you are there - in effect you become a part of the >> person's "inner comfort circle" at once! The western method of street >> photography, to pretend, and go through an elaborate charade, to appear as >> if you are not surreptitiously taking photographs, is really not required >> here. One can be quite direct. >> >> I try all the time for eye contact in the wilderness with animals/birds as >> well, it adds quite an element of danger and tension, and adds some punch >> to what are otherwise fairly mundane captures. >> >> Cheers >> Jayanand >> >> On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 11:10 AM, <mitcha at mac.com> wrote: >> >>> Thanks for the kind words, Jaya and Douglas B. >>> >>> Douglas - eye contact is good in some pictures, but I wouldn?t make it a >>> general rule for street photography because then a lot of the pictures >>> you >>> shoot will be ?street portraits.? If the aim is ?documentation" or >>> ?depiction,? then the photographer won?t want eye contact in many of the >>> pictures. On internet forums many people write how they prefer to ask the >>> subjects permission before shooting, bout that often leads to the subject >>> posing, which often tends to undermine both documenting and depicting. >>> >>> ?Mitch > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information