{"id":2049,"date":"2012-07-13T15:01:38","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T06:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-07-13\/2049"},"modified":"2012-12-19T11:13:28","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T02:13:28","slug":"impromptu-portraiture-practice-bill-in-kyoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-07-13\/2049","title":{"rendered":"Impromptu Portraiture Practice: Bill in Kyoto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 5600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBill<\/span>\nsemi-aware portraiture guinea pig\n<\/div>\n\n

As I mentioned the\nother day<\/a>, I'm interested<\/span> in upping my people-photography skills, and\nafter watching some Peter Hurley<\/a>\nvideos I realize<\/span> that the barrier I face<\/span> is not technical skill with the\ncamera, but people skills with people.<\/p>\n\n

Knowing what to do is quite different than actually being able to do it,\nbut that's where practice comes in.<\/p>\n\n

So I was out with some friends at a roof<\/span>-top beer garden the other day\nand struck up a conversation<\/span> with the guy at the next table, Bill, a\nprivate<\/span> chef from Boston in town to learn Japanese cooking. We had a<\/span> fun\nconversation about food and photography and Japan and such, and since I had<\/span>\nmy camera with me, it only seemed natural to point it his way at some\npoint.<\/p>\n\n

So I do so, and he steels himself for a pose.<\/span>..<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 5600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDeer in the Headlights<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Bill is a good looking guy, so the picture above isn't bad<\/i>, but\nit lacks something because he's posing for the camera instead of being\nhimself.<\/p>\n\n

Thanks to what I learned in the videos I could<\/span> sense this barrier, and\nknew enough not to command “smile” in hopes of breaking it, but I didn't<\/span>\nknow what to do. So from halfway<\/span> behind the camera I went<\/span> back to our\nconversation about the challenges of learning thousands of years worth of\nJapanese-cooking culture in a few<\/span> short days, and asked him to make the\nface he'd have if, on the day of his return, he was tasked with creating a\nJapanese<\/span> banquet for an important client. My intent<\/span> was to bring him\nthrough some silly faces to break the grip of “camera”, the finally say\nsomething to elicit a smile.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

He started to think about it a moment, then snapped “I know<\/span> what you're doing... it's a photographer's<\/span> trick!<\/i>”\nand started to smile an honest laughing smile...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 5000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nRealization<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

... to which I replied “yes, but it seems to be working perfectly<\/i>”...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 5000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDrat, I Can't<\/span> Believe He Got Me<\/span>\nthat wrascally wrascal\n<\/div>\n\n

... and once he was free from the “smile for the camera, NOW!” constraints, he smiled a true<\/span> smile, and I happened<\/span> to be there with the camera.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 5600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMoney Shot<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The results would have been much better except that I had<\/span> been enjoying\nmyself at an all-you-can-drink beer garden for two hours, was using a new<\/span>\ncamera I'd had for less than a day<\/span> and didn't really know how to use, and\nworst of all, the mixed rooftop lighting was absolutely atrocious\n(fluorescent lights are generally horrid... they flicker with changing color\n60 times a second.<\/span>.. fast enough that our eyes blend it all into “white”,\nbut the camera can't do that, and sometimes the top half of the image is\nlit by a different<\/span> color than the bottom, or one half is lit while the\nother isn't. Ugh.)<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, it was good practice.... if he's ever in town again, perhaps I'll get a second<\/span> chance.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned the other day, I'm interested in upping my people-photography skills, and after watching some Peter Hurley videos I realize that the barrier I face is not technical skill with the camera, but people skills with people.<\/p>

Knowing what to do is quite different than actually being able to do it, but that's where practice comes in.<\/p>

So I was out with some friends at a roof-top beer garden the other day and struck up a conversation with the guy at the next table, Bill, a private chef from Boston in town to learn Japanese cooking. We had [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}