Starting Out

Well, Blogger seemed to spend most of yesterday going tits up, which was a pain, and meant I couldn’t write much at all. So I may spend some of today catching up a bit. And in that vein….

On Tuesday night I went out for the first “shoot” with the charity I’m doing some photos for. I have to say, in some ways it was a very odd experience – but at least it came out with some good results. But it’s weird, those first introductions as “This is our photographer”, it’s a new job title, but I think/hope it’s one I’ll get used to.

I find I still feel slightly uncomfortable with taking pictures of people, even if they’re willing participants. I don’t know why that’s the case, I just find that at the moment it’s the most difficult part of photography. Some people find it easy, I don’t. But I’ll get there, and improve, same as I will with regarding myself as “a photographer”.

The people themselves though were fantastic. I got some shots that I’m pleased with, and that I’m already 99% certain will make their way into the publicity materials for the charity. And even if that 1% comes up, they’ll be part of my growing portfolio. The soup kitchen makes for a fascinating place to take photos, but also to talk to people – I figure that I’m not just there to take photos, but while there I’m part of the rest of it too, so I did end up talking a lot to a few of the people there. Also I guess it’s partly a psychological thing too – I’m going to be there and taking more shots over the next couple of weeks, whether it’s for myself or for the publicity stuff, and they’ll feel a lot more comfortable being photographed by someone they’ve seen before, not just a one-off occurrence.

I was supposed to go last night with the same charity on a tour of some of the “red light” areas to take photos of some of the prostitutes the charity also works with, but it fell through and instead will be done next Tuesday. It’ll be interesting, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot more thoughts and work to come out of it.