Permissive Portraits

Portraits  from  the  Street

Last year on the A Year With My Camera Course   there was a  theme  of  taking street  portraits to encourage  us to “feel  the  fear  and  do  it anyway!. Naturally enough, this produced some understandable  anxiety,  but  I  gave  it a  go, and  was  rewarded  with  bumping  into this  fellow.

I recently   decided to give it another go, and there have been a few takeaways:

Doing this really makes you look closely at people, not just to notice anything photogenic about them, but to try to guess whether they would be receptive or not. Obviously, someone on their phone is a nonstarter.  There are also people who appear deep in thought, and I would not want to disturb them. Some folks give off an impression their day is not going well, and that is a cue to not ask. I realize this is of course   entirely guesswork, and intuitive, but I think it is important. 40 years as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse does help though!

There are folk who decline, and I simply thank them and move on.

My approach to date is to keep it short when approaching someone. I say, “I am an amateur photographer practicing street photography, may I take a quick portrait please?”. I would say so far it is about 50% yes, 50% no.

I  am  aware as I walk I  quickly  look  at  what people are  wearing, if   they are  wearing  something   really  cool or  different  that   attracts  my interest  I  will  approach  them.

Some folks ask me what I intend to do with the image, and I mention my web site.  I always offer to show them the image from my camera.

I have learnt to set my camera settings up in advance, I  set  Automatic   White  Balance to match the light in the   environment, Aperture  usually  on f8, with a shutter speed  to expose  at  either 0  or down to  -1  stop under exposed.   

At this stage I am simply grateful for a “yes” , and I have not yet  gained  the  confidence  to “pose” someone, other than occasionally to ask if they would be O.K standing sideways to me.  I still rush a little, and would like to slow down, but not make the subject uncomfortable  with  too long a  delay.

 I usually feel a sense of relief afterwards!!

Here is a great video with more tips for taking street portraits:

Moving forward  I hope to begin to think more carefully about the composition, placing people against a backdrop that adds to the story, and try getting closer to the subject to blur the background, but  I  am not quite  there  yet. I also eventually want to photograph couples and friends together.

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