#AdoramaU: Portraits & People

Over the past 10 months, you have learned how to expose, to light and compose your photos, so you are ready to get out there and put it all together, but what and who will you photograph? Wherewill you find them and how will you approach them? You’ve heard that luck favors the prepared… Well, great images are full of luck and they come as a result of practice and preparation.

I just returned home to the United States after teaching a workshop in Poland and traveling through Sweden and of course, whenever I travel, I take my camera with me. I imagine you do the same. But, when you are traveling, are you taking the photographs you really want to take? I am a lifestyle, wedding and portrait photographer; I photograph people and I enjoy what I do. Which means that when I travel, every landscape, street or building I see just looks like a great backdrop for a portrait. Other people bring home souvenirs from their travels, I like to bring home the people I find there, in the form of a photograph.

If you are reading this, I assume you also photograph people, or want to. When you travel, are you photographing people? Are you making great portraits on your travels? Even at home, when you take time to make images, are you making the images that matter to you? I find that so many photographers (enthusiasts and professional) revert to the path of least resistance and rather than pointing their camera at the people they are interested in, they opt for sunsets, drain pipes and rusted doors. Why? In most cases it is for lack of courage or for lack of a plan. Well, I am going to help you create a plan right now, so the next time you find yourself in an interesting place, you will have the courage to make the images you want to create. And you don’t have to make a trek half way around the world to make this plan work. Plan a Saturday excursion downtown, or a weekend to your home town.

Have a goal

When you are planning your trip, make a goal to come home with a modest number of images. Decide what kind and how many and don’t shoot for the moon, make the goal achievable. In my case, I traveled to Stockholm and I wanted to return home with a set of images from a lifestyle / model shoot in the cobblestone streets of Gamlastan, the original medieval center of Stockholm.

Make a plan

Without a plan in place, you will not succeed. Your personal project will require dedicated photo time. As you make your schedule, build in time to accomplish your goal. I planned a week in Sweden to see the sights, have a few meetings, enjoy the city, visit the countryside, and accomplish my photography goal. So I planned a morning of location scouting (sightseeing) when I first arrived in Stockholm. Then, I scheduled time to find my subject (more on this in a little bit). Finally, I set aside flexible time for the photoshoot toward the end of my stay in Sweden. Even if you are not traveling, the “plan” is still important to your success.

If you are traveling with someone, let them know your plans so they can be a part of it, or they can plan on something else during that time. I was traveling with my brother, who was more than happy to tag along and hold a light during a photoshoot, but took the opportunity to sleep in while I was location scouting in the wee hours of the morning.

Know your location

Knowing where you will shoot is very important to your success. First, you need to be able to communicate to your subjects where to meet you, and second, with a limited amount of time in your schedule for the actual shoot, you will get more images if you know where you are going. If you are planning some street photography, knowing where you will find people and various activities at the right times will be important as well.

With modern technology, location scouting can be started months before you go and from thousands of miles away. Use google earth and google image searches to find locations that light your fire and mark them on your mobile map (I use google maps on my iPhone).

Saved locations on google maps appear as stars and can be saved and synchronized between your computer and your mobile maps.

Then, when you are physically scouting the locations, you know where to start by following your mobile map. As you move from possible location to possible location, you will confirm your favorite locations and invariably find something even better. Mark the location on your mobile map or enable your GPS on your camera or your phone and simply import all your images into Adobe Lightroom. It will map out all your locations for you!

Lightroom automatically charts the locations of your GPS enabled images in its MAP module.

Do your location scouting at the same time of day as your scheduled shoot. This will help you see the quality of light as well as the local traffic and activities at that time of day. I did my location scouting in the streets of Gamlastan at night and in the early morning because I knew I wanted to photograph in the absence of the sun. Much of my scouting was done while sight seeing with my brother, walking to dinner, on an early morning stroll, etc… Just be careful not to loose sight of your goal. If you can’t think like a photographer and a tourist at the same time, plan a little alone time and think only about location scouting.

Finding a subject

Again, modern technology is extremely helpful in finding a subject for your photoshoot. If you are not bringing your subject with you (spouse, friend, child), Facebook and Twitter can help you search and connect with people anywhere in the world. You could have a local model and your shoot schedule in place before you ever leave your home town, but if you really want to challenge yourself, do your model search in person when you arrive.

As soon as I arrived in Stockholm, I began looking for interesting individuals. I am naturally a shy person, but I have practiced the art of developing trust and connection with people very quickly. You can develop this skill as well, but you must care about people and be genuinely interested in them and then you must practice communicating with them. People are fascinating, ask them to tell you their stories and they will. And once you know who they are, you will also have their trust. With their trust, comes their permission. Maybe your portrait will need to be taken right then and there. But sometimes, you will be given the green light for a full portrait session. This is when your planning and location scouting pay off. The “plan” is the key. It gives you confidence to ask and they will feed off that confidence. Be prepared to succeed.

The first person I met in Stockholm that intrigued me was Erik, an older gentleman who had lived in Gamlastan as a child, when it was (as he put it) more of a ghetto. We had a good half hour conversation on a bench outside his local café and he allowed me to photograph him in the moment. That half hour was one of the most enjoyable of my trip. I learned so much about this wonderful man and his city and captured some fantastic images to take home with me (and send back to him on Facebook).

The key to a good street portrait (or any portrait for that matter) is allowing the subject the freedom to be who they are. Many photographers will use a long telephoto lens and steal a photo of their subject unaware, but there is no substitution for getting to know your subject and gaining their blessing for the photo you would like to make. With consent, you have far more freedom to create. This does not mean that you need to instruct them. Too much direction will stiffen up a beautiful image. If your subject becomes nervous, or uncomfortable–talk to them, smile at them, engage them– resume shooting once they show themselves again. You will know you have drawn out their personality when you can still hear their voice through the image.

Later, as I sat in a beautiful square having a gelato, rather than lunch, I spotted the most unique man I had seen all year, sitting in the adjacent café, having a coffee with his brother. I approached him and introduced myself and explained to him, “I would like nothing more than to photograph you.” He chuckled and then asked if I would photograph his girlfriend as well and what they should wear? I told him where and when I would like to photograph and the photoshoot was confirmed for a few days later.

Wiktor (or Victor) and his girl friend were, as it turned out, fond of costume parties and had the most outrageously cool outfits, including kilts and traditional Swedish guard uniforms. I encouraged him to bring the most unique outfits they had and he certainly came through! Remember that old adage about luck and the prepared… I couldn’t have concocted this in my wildest dreams. I would never have thought to look for a man with a such a brilliant mustache and put him in an outfit like that? But, when you organically find a man on the street with that mustache, he is bound to wear equally fantastic clothing. And when you are prepared for it, you can jump on the opportunity with absolute confidence.

Know your equipment

Once you have a plan, a location and a model, your equipment is the last thing that stands between you and success. Up to this point, you have exuded confidence and your subject has agreed to work with you, but if you are fumbling with your equipment, you will loose the confidence of your subject and worse yet, you will loose the momentum and energy of your photoshoot. The latest, greatest, expensive equipment cannot help you if you don’t know what you are doing with it. Far better is to make sure the equipment you have is reliable and that you know how to use it… blindfolded! Practice on your kids and your friends and make sure you know your equipment inside and out. If you don’t… get some help, take a workshop, read a manual.

It is also very helpful to have lightweight equipment that you can set up and manipulate quickly. I use Profoto B1 and B2 off camera flashes because they are powerful, extremely reliable, they can be controlled from my camera (in manual and TTL) and they are compact and light-weight.

My brother (who knows nothing about lighting) held the B2 on a monopod during the photoshoot and I made all the adjustments from my camera. If I ever need to travel even lighter, I use my Canon 600RT speedlite system for reliable and ultra compact off-camera lighting. Either way, the equipment needs to be reliable and lightweight, and you need to know how to use it!

Follow through, rain or shine:

Once you have determined your goal and made your plans, follow through on them, rain or shine! If you decided to scout early in the morning, get up and do it. Just because you are on vacation, doesn’t give you permission to drop the ball on yourself. And once you have a subject, you owe it to them to follow through and make this photoshoot great!

After planning our photoshoot in Sweden with Wiktor and his girlfriend, a storm started rolling into Stockholm and threatened rain throughout our scheduled photoshoot, but we did not cancel! Instead, we bought umbrellas! It was raining as we arrived at the location and we even started taking portraits with the umbrellas, but within a few minutes, the rain stopped and we were blessed with a beautiful night and shimmering cobble stone streets.

One added benefit to rain is the lack of foot traffic in the square. We had the streets to ourselves throughout the evening.

Great portraits don’t make themselves, you have to plan for success. Wether you are going on a long trip to an exotic location, or you are taking a stroll downtown, this kind of preparation will give you the greatest opportunities for success. Preparation and training build confidence and confidence is the most important ingredient in the relationship between a photographer and his subject.