street portraits — Journal

This entry is all about making street portraits during a global pandemic. Think of this as a follow up post or sequel to “From the archives - 08.19.2020” .

In my previous post about making street portraits, I talked about how I became comfortable with approaching strangers for their portraits. However, with COVID-19 having been around for close to a year now, this posed a challenge for me both creatively and mentally. Those challenges being: Do I want to approach strangers during a pandemic? How do I even begin to ask people for their portraits? How could I even make an interesting portrait with most of their face covered?

At first it was pretty difficult, no one was really out. The streets of San Francisco was still relatively empty which meant I had to look a little harder or really keep an eye out for anyone that piqued my interest. I thought the aspect of the mask would hide too much of the persons face or be too distracting for a portrait. But then I soon realized that the masks people are wearing became more expressive or added a layer of mystery to them. The masks had an interesting way of adding to the subjects outward personality but without being too distracting. Some people even took down their masks because they preferred their expressions shown (All their choice, I didn’t ask them to).

I also knew I had to change my approach to interacting with strangers. Being the soft spoken person I am, I had to learn to communicate with people through a mask that usually muffles my voice. This meant I had to project my voice louder than I’m comfortable with, but not in a way that changes my tone and speak with clear intentions. I would still compliment the people I talked to as a means of connecting with them; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I felt like most people didn’t want to interact with a stranger and I totally respected that. But of the people that did let me photograph them I kept the interactions brief and respected their boundaries.

I feel like photographing people in masks is going to be the norm for a while until things are deemed safe and Covid is not a serious threat anymore.

Shot on Kodak Ektachrome E100 and Kodak Tri-X 400 with a Leica M-A and a 35mm Summicron.

This entry is dedicated to one of the most intimidating aspects of street photography: street portraits.

I’m naturally a shy person so street portraits have always been difficult for me. The act of walking up to a complete stranger and asking them for their portrait was completely out of my comfort zone. There have been countless times when I encountered people on the street and felt compelled to take their photo, but would stop myself by making up excuses in my head (ie: “they would probably say no” or “they would probably think I’m weird or creepy” or “I wouldn’t even know what to say”). After the moment of opportunity passes, the thought of “why didn’t I just talk to them?” would linger in the back of my mind and this frustrated me.

Instead of letting myself get discouraged, I decided to challenge myself by slowly engaging more with my surroundings. My goal was to build up my confidence so that I could approach strangers and ask them for their photo. I first started by asking friends of friends in social settings. This allowed me to learn how to talk to someone I wasn’t familiar with, but who also wasn’t a complete stranger. Then I started to gain the confidence to ask strangers. Without the crutch of familiarity, I applied what I had learned from my previous interactions in order to push myself to talk to strangers. There were definitely a lot of no’s but equally as many yes’s.

Over the years, I’ve found that a simple compliment or even being completely transparent with your intentions can go a long way with most people. It makes them feel at ease and they’re more open to the idea of a stranger taking their photo. Sometimes my subjects will let me take their photo and be on their way or sometimes they’ll get excited and will let me direct them. Those experiences usually yield the best portraits. I’ve also learned (if possible) it’s important to give your subjects a copy of their portrait via email or even a physical print. Sharing your work with them gives you the chance to broaden your audience outside of social media/your normal sharing outlets and it makes for a nice gift. The photos below are some of my favorite street portraits and they’re in no particular order.

Shot on various film stocks and various cameras.