Documentary and travel photographer
Part 3 of photographing people
Taking pictures in people houses is demanding high level skills of interaction, ability to manage the situation in delicate manner. English is not my native language but still “taking picture” (taking instead of giving or other word), and “shooting people” are strong expressions to describe interaction with people. As some of us know already there are some cultures that consider photographing is like taking your soul.
Faces-of-the-world-morocco - Sidi Moktar's market
Morocco, Sidi Moktar’s market, 2010
Canon1Ds Mark III 16mm, 1/50 @F/4.5, ISO125
I entered the room that was located in the middle of the market.
I took some shots some of also include the face of the man in the
entrance but I preferred this photo for its natural pose,
the real life it describes and the internal interaction of each one
of the subjects. I asked to take picture when I entered the room,
one that stands in the entrance didn’t feel comfortable,
the one at the left continue like nothing was changes and the
one in the middle asking for money, as you can notice from his hand gesture
Privacy
Imagine that doing it inside of someone’s house, wife’s kitchen (sorry for the stereotype), and kids’ room. It is really invasion of privacy even if you asked for permission in advanced. Another of factor that nee to be considered is how much it is staged photo, natural scene, or ultimate decisive moment. You have to be polite and respect the house codes. It is sound obvious, and everyone consider him or her self as a someone that give respect especially those who consider themselves as people photographer. In one of my assignments I was negotiating with the sumo wrestling in Japan to come and stay within their property and to leave together with the sumo wrestlers and they refused until I found local contact that will vouch for me that I will keep the local customs. When my contact person ask them why they demand it they told him that they had bad experience with a photojournalist from one the famous magazines that didn’t respect the local customs. They told me that he didn’t learn them at all.
You have to learn the local customs. If you can step in with shoes on, so take it off like it is common in Japan or in other cultures. Cover your head with hat or yarmulke like in an orthodox Jewish house. Don’t take a woman picture if her man is not close to her in Islamic countries or don’t take picture of an Islamic woman at all. We can all notice that most of people and travel photo are from less develop countries where the population care less about their privacy than in the western world. It is all about the culture and you photograph people you photograph culture learn and respect it.
Interaction and communication
This chapter will focus on interaction with the family members and the photographer. It depends where you plan to photograph. You have to prepare yourself to this project. If you are a professional photographer or amateur photographer that is traveling to exotic places you have to vision and plan. It is easily understood if you are a professional photographer on assignment. You know that you have a mission to be complete and there are frames that you have to bring back home. But even if you are an amateur photographer you should know that won’t be back to this place again in the coming future. Usually traveler like you photographing by the itinerary they planned and not by the pictures they succeed to take. This means that you have only one chance to have your pictures. Because you will leave the day after to the next step in your trip and no second chance to record your vision.
Mumbai dharbi india - woman washes the dishes int front of her home
Dharbi Mumbai, India 2010
Canon1Ds mark3 16mm, 1/50 @F/4.5, ISO125
One of Dharbi’s characteristics is the small apartments.
Every family has a small cubical that as you can see cannot be
captured only from the outside. This lady gladly agreed to pose
while her husband continues to sleep in the back of the room.
She washed the dishes after she finished cooking lunch.
She was very friendly and wonders if to wake her husband or let him sleep.
She asked me with her hands, if I would like her to continue
washing the dishes or want to enter house.
Main challenges – photograph in others houses
Light source –
One of the challenges in photographing in house is the light source. The light in the house usually comprised from different sources like lamp on the ceiling, from the outside like an open door or a window and or other source of light like fire, computer or TV screen etc.
When you decide about the scene you have to look carefully about the light conditions. It depend how you want to capture the scene and what to convey. You can look at the picture above which I took from the outside and the following picture I took just the opposite from the internal outbound.
In the above picture I used the external light for the foreground and the woman that was washing the dishes while her husband and the internal part of her house what lighted by a small fluorescent lamp and remains of the light from the outside.
In the following picture where light conditions were very complicated, I choose not to take the shot from the outside because in that case I could have record the woman – she has beam of light from the above – but the background would come out very dark and detailed less.
Morocco - woman makes tea under light beam
Morocco, Tiz-n-Tishka, one of the atals villges, 2010
Canon1Ds mark3 19mm, 1/160 @F/3.2, ISO500
I was at photography excursion to morocco and it was
the second time to visit this village. We came with pictures
from the first visit and used clothes. The grand mother is signing
while making tea as hospitality for the group while her daughter
brought cups from the other room so I could capture her as a silhouette
while the grandmother was sitting under the light beam that came
through the hole in the ceiling. There are 3 light sources which are equal
– light beam, fire in the middle of the room and the external light in the door.
Light conditions within the room itself were very difficult so I scarify
the ISO and maintain shutter speed that will enable sharp picture.
I could afford myself to use open aperture because I used a super wide
angle lens that enable reasonable depth of field (even behind the
silhouette woman you can still see details).
Posing or natural scene?
Photographing as a guest in house of a family come with lot of constrains. As we discuss earlier natural light is one of them. The other is the scene itself and does it reflect your vision. How, from one side to respect the hosts and on the other side to realize your vision? How without too much interference, create the posing that you had in mind before start to shoot? As you can imagine there is thick line between taking picture as it is in reality or posing the people in the right place ask them to continue what they were used to do before you came, and still with respect.
My personal approach and my intuitive behavior is to create the scene that you wanted because that even if you end with good frame, you might feel that you miss “the” frame. You should ask for cooperation. I found out that in most of the cases when you asked for help people were ready to help you achieve your goal. Most of the people that are ready to participate passively in a picture will be glad to participate actively when you asked them to. In some case people might ask for money or any reward for their participation. I will cover this issue in my chapter about specific markets.
Faces of the world - Romania the Carpathian - Shepperd in hut
Romania, The Carpathians, within the hut , 2006
Canon D5 16mm, 1/13 @F/7.1, ISO1000
This hut was located on top of the Carpathians and served
11 men that left their village down the mountains and climbed
early spring together with their common and small sheep in
order to produce cheese and to sell it. The reason for climbing
only in the spring is because the mountains still covered by snow
until than and they need weeds to feed the sheep. These men leave
together in the same hat for the spring and the summer without
their wives and family. When I came all were eating their lunch
outside the hut, and this man lie sown and rest in this room.
When I enter he stood up and I decided that the location of the
natural light to his left is very good for the scene and I shoot.
I asked him to be relaxed and natural (non verbal just with hand signs).
Please not that from technical point of view I could open the
aperture to F/2.8 and still have depth of field across the picture
(it is super wide angle – read in my last post about using
different lenses). By that I could reduce the level of noise that
was produce by the high ISO.
What lens to use?
In close areas I will tend to use wide angle lens. Usually in the range of the ultra wide – closer to 16mm. The advantages of using this lens are the following: it can capture the whole figure of the object and in the background most of the room. It enables to have most of the frame in focus (depth of field).the disadvantages are mostly about the distortions. If the object is located the corners of the frame it might be skew a little bit. Or, lines of the walls, furniture etc can be distorted.
If the room is relatively big I would go to short-tele lens like 50mm or 85mm, which are considered as great portrait lens which enable you to gain object’s details while you will have challenges with depth of field.
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