Week 2 Images

These were both shot for week 2′s assignment, shoot a portrait of a stranger. I joined some friends at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, CA as they shopped for some denim. I thought it might be a solid place for this assignment.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to approach anyone, and didn’t really see anyone that fit what I had in my mind for the assignment either. As we decided it was time to head back to the cars, we rounded a fountain and found a pair of girls chatting away.

I asked if I could photograph them and after struggling to explain why, got to squeeze the shutter release a few times. This blonde caught my eye the most, her friend was leaning back and didn’t really fit into the image quite as well. It turned out that they were both pretty young and were disturbed that the boy of their affection had not returned a text message yet. In this image, she had just caught a glimpse of her mom walking back to meet with them, and had a bit of an embarrassed grin on her face. Realizing her age all at once and still being nervous about the experience anyways, I felt like a bit of a creeper and didn’t want to stick around to talk to mom.

I like this image quite a bit but feel like I hit a good one pretty quickly. I’d only attempted one other shot prior to this, so I’m stretching the due date out a bit and will attempt again this weekend. The other shot came from a quick trip to CES last week. I brought my Nikon with me specifically for this assignment. I happened across a photographer outside on a smoke break (his, I’ve quit). He fit perfectly what I’d hoped to find, texture. His hair was wild and salt and pepper colored. Atop his mussed do sat Ray Bans, and on his nose a pair of reading glasses. A few days of stubble graced his face, and he smoked a cigarette while reading emails (I imagine) on his iPhone. I asked if I could photograph him, again stumbling through an explanation why (I feel as if saying I’m a student would be cheating, as P52 is supposed to prepare you for professional assignments, hence the assignments and due dates). I managed to pop off one shot before thanking him and quickly returning to my fellow traveler.

I’d hoped to capture an image of a man with texture such as his with an off camera flash, enhancing the rough texture. I hadn’t exactly practiced this technique yet, but read all about it on the drive to Vegas. I’d played a bit in the car but once I hit the show floor I changed the settings to an aperture mode to quickly pickup snapshots of the wares. I didn’t remember to change things back before this shot, so it was terribly overexposed. I shoot in RAW primarily for situations such as this, to cover for my negligent skills. It’s saved me before. Some work in Aperture, a little fooling around in Snapseed, and I’ve got this. Better luck next time I say.