October 28, 2006: Andrade
After I expressed an interest in getting closer to my subjects, a number of people wrote in with ideas. They can be summarized as:
1. Use a wider lens and move closer to the subject
2. Shoot at public events, and in other places where people expect less privacy
3. Introduce yourself before you shoot
I've been experimenting with the first idea over the last couple of weeks, mainly using a 24mm lens. Results are mixed so far. The last two ideas still feel like pussying out, but they're probably useful while you're building up your courage. So far, I've not tried either. Here are a few of the emails.
Some photographers who have grappled with the same problems you probably already know: Helen Levitt on the lower east side of new york, although those are less formal portaits than you are looking for, she always places her subjects in a context-
August Sander is very formal, you probably are familiar with him
So what are they doing?
Take your guy in the striped shirt, move him across the street, and you back up fifteen more feet and use a "normal" lens and a large amount of depth of field. You will get a natural drawing of both him head to toe, and the background, sharp focus on him, and a somewhat softer drawing of the background. Or you could put him in the middle of the road, stand 8 feet away, use a wide lens, you would have him again head to toe and a great deal of the background in focus because its a wide lens and you are in daylight and at f11 or so.
There are only four components to this: camera to subject distance, subject to background distance, f-stop and angle of view. Where the guy is standing in your picture, the view is limited by subject to background distance; there is only so much of the background you can get AND be close enough to him to see him. you backed up to get more surroundings and he disappears!. So I am assuming you want to be closer like you say. To get close to him you have to decrease the camera to subject distance, there is no way around that. I discount using a long lens because it only has the appearance of being closer, when you are looking at an image, a long lens will make you feel like you are looking in but not close to someone. To make pictures with that "intimacy" you need to be physically close.
That leaves the other factors, subject to background, fstop and lens. The august sander approach was to use a "normal" lens and move the subject off the background somewhat-so you see the person and the surroundings. there is another part to his "look", the large format part-because the film is so big the "normal" lens, that is the lens that yields what we consider a normal to the eye magnification and field of view is often equal to the diagonal measurement of the film itself. for 35mm frames that is like 35-50mm diagonal which is considered normal, on medium format it is 80 to 90mm, and for sander, on 8x10, it was 360-420mm or so. The effect of using a 360mm "normal" lens is that the depth of focus is very shallow, so you see that characteristic falloff of focus on large format negs, even at small (f16) apertures relatively speaking. It is very hard to get that effect on 35mm unless you move to longer lenses, and then you start getting a telephoto effect. What sander could do is use a "normal" field of view lens and achieve a soft background.
The flip side of that is that the depth of focus is much larger on smaller cameras, particularly so on cropped sensor dslrs. So you can take advantage of that, and use a normal lens, move the subject closer to you but farther from the background, select a small aperture and get the guy full figure sharp and most of the same background you have in this pic. It won't be tack sharp, but the point was to get closer to the people yet retain context. Sander kind of abstracts context a little, depending on the pic, the backgrounds are so "airy" you could say.
Levitt used a wide angle lens mostly or a rollei perhaps, and how she did it was again to get close to the subject but just take in what background the wide angle permitted, a much looser style.
Obviously there are hundreds of examples, but the "physics" of it is exactly the same. We all have the same lenses and cameras to use. There are no magic formulas.
I think the "honesty" you are looking for is the first example, a normal lens and move the subject. If you have a zoom I would tape the lens so that you can't zoom any more, zooms help to make bad choices in framing, and contribute to a sense of a lack of consistency in the finished work. Leave the long lenses at home also. Also there is no substitute for a larger format in these cases, (hate to say it) you can retain detail that is lost in 35mm which contributes to the feeling of truthfulness in a sort of way. these are just conventions. you might like greg miller's work, he uses only 8x10 but does what you are looking for.
about people-it is not easy for anyone to approach strangers, there is no secret. If you can make eye contact you can usually get what you want if you ask, and if the subject demurs just leave. If something is really good but you don't know how to insinuate yourself in sometimes you can "hang" around for a while shooting something unrelated just so they get use to you being there and doing what you are doing. It might come up that they would ask you, or you can take a "break" for a moment and make a comment to the subject about something and start a conversation that way. Even though the moment may have passed that contained the thing you saw initially, it might not matter, you can often ask the person to do the same thing again, which is tricky and requires a little bit of technique to get the subject back to where they were, also a lot of cooperation. But the entire process can lead to an even better pic because now you are "in" and new things are going on which are organic and you are right there. In other words a little effort pays off big usually.
sometimes it helps to practice shooting at events where people are less aware and also more open to photography-parades, etc. anywhere where there is a "hubub" is a lot easier usually, it distracts, and people are excited and forgiving.
sometimes a bigger presence helps too, believe me, carrying a 4x5 or 8x10 is a ticket to ride usually, and just the length of time it takes and the strangeness of it is like insulation, there are no hassles and everyone is interested. plenty of crown graphics out there with 150mm lenses....for cheap cheap! And scanning is not that much of a pain because you can't afford to shoot more! its perfect....
remember your attitude towards what you do is more important than their reaction, which you can't control anyway. So just be curious, pleasant and feeling, and you can't go wrong.
good luck
Robert followed up with another email today:
Introducing yourself would definitely not be pussying out. It might be the bravest of the three. And no matter how many times you photograph strangers, it takes courage. Consider that if you are not getting a few cold shoulders you probably are not trying hard enough. And also consider there is no way that you cannot affect what you photograph-so accept your influence and work with it. Also also also consider the ratio of successes to failures is well over 100 to 1...:(
thanks for posting my email.
It's an interesting journey finding your personal aesthetic distance
for particular kinds of shots. I've struggled with this as well, but
I don't do a lot of environmental portraiture (which I think is the
genre you're honing in on).
It's tempting to say: "use a wider lens," but that glosses over the finer points. You mention Joel Sternfeld on your 'about' page; I think his enviro. portraits are about the best out there. He's working pretty close to people generally, with a fairly wide lens, still showing people from head-to-toe, taking up a quarter to a third of the frame (one loose rule of thumb for enviro. portraits) but with plenty of space around them to gve that sense of place.
So, if you're using, say, a 24mm lens on your Canon 20D, as I'm sure you know it's only about a 40mm lens when you take the fov crop factor into account. Think about maybe halving the distance you're shooting from here as well as almost halving the (effective) focal length of the lens you're using. Look for something in the 24-28mm range (effective focal length on your 20D). If you keep the camera parallel to the ground/perpendicular to your subject (and the lens is reasonably well-corrected), you shouldn't get too much distortion, even up close (though facial feature like noses will be exaggerated, possibly objectionably). Worth a try...
Best regards, --Geoff
I've been visiting bluejake.com since moving to the Northeast last year. Though I don't live in NY, I do think that your photos generally capture the raw, historical and industrial qualities that intrigue me about the NE. Coming from the Northwest, I've been accustomed to the neat, cleanliness of the cities there. Something about living on the NW is too easy. Your photos remind me of how real life can be both here and elsewhere.
I think that your thoughtfulness about "standing across the street with a 50mm is pussying out in an embarrassing and obvious way" is--to be blunt--rather right on. I've started getting bored with bluejake.com because the photos don't deviate much from one another anymore. Still, I visit daily because I'm hopeful that your creative process will shift and something beautiful will come about. Best of luck in your process.
Thanks, Eddie Meraz