Pose Well Struck
This was an interesting one. I often entreat my friends to model for my own practice. Only my good friends Emily and Michael have been at all forthcoming to the idea and were the first to give decent leeway to my whims.
The following shots were taken at the Dawn Treader bookshop which is a fantastic place in and of itself. I think I might want to do an entire series of shots matching my subjects to the corresponding shelf markers.
Full disclaimer : These shots were in jest . . . mostly
I was talking to Michael, a photographer in his own right, from Scene N America, and more commonly associated with his virally famous Corgi, Reggie, and he said something that I have been reflecting on for a bit. I dare not quote him directly in the fear that my memory might fail me, but what he essentially conveyed was the idea that people know intrinsically how to pose. That the time that many a person puts into posing in front of the mirror in the privacy of their own home is enough practice for them. He even cites the body language that one would adopt in specific scenarios - trying to catch someone's eye at a party for example.
I have many thoughts on this - for starters I do believe some people have a much easier time purveying that than others. I would like to take what he said even farther however - the two shots above were completely devoid of my involvement in terms of posing. I merely expressed interest in taking a photo and they almost automatically took this stance. Perhaps it is a reflection of their whimsical nature, their mood on the night, their feelings towards the subject matter and just a vast plethora of factors that could have worked in conjunction with one another. They knew how to pose and it was fantastic.
I present to you another instance of this - I absolutely adore lights and I love the silhouettes that these two form. I would very much like to retake this shot - perhaps with fairy lights enveloping the two. Perhaps Emily's glasses and Michael's hat.
The following shot I was very amused by. It did not however end up being my final portrait of Michael Proudnikov for that night. Again, I maintain that I did not actively seek to position Michael in a certain way - he just instinctively knew what to do.
Below I present one of my final shots of the day.
I attempted to get the flower tattoo on Emily's hand in focus. However I failed to do so in my opinion. I wanted to showcase it but had trouble filtering out the rest of the composition - there is too much going on. On July 27th I attempted to remedy that with the following shot.
All of these shots, till now, were on my friend Lexy's Sigma 30mm, f/1.4 which on my Sony a5100 body would have an equivalent focal length of 45mm due to the 1.5x crop factor. This one was shot using a Sony 50mm (APS-C equivalent 75mm) f/1.8.
I could have attempted the same shot with the 30mm(45mm) f/1.4 but the 50mm has been my go to lens - it has really forced me to learn composition by zooming on my feet. Usually I have to get farther away from scenes to compose it with my 50mm, but it keeps me at a nice distance from all of what is going on. I am excited to use my new 12mm Samyang f/2.8 to get up and close with my composition. .
