I was always attracted by street photography in general and street portraits in particular. But I never had enough willpower to actually go out there and ask people whether I may to take a picture of them.
Thanks to Don Giannatti's Project 52, that finally changed:
The assignment for the second week was nothing less than to go out and photograph a stranger. With that as a cause, I finally bit the bullet and went out, asking people.
The weather was bad (but superb, even lighting :)) and there weren't many people around. Also, I went for rather friendly looking ones and ended up with four strangers approached and two pictures, adding up to a quote of 50%.
The first one was in the photo above. A friendly man who immediately consented and really liked his portrait. That was a very nice start and so I decided to continue, despite not having any excercises to fullfil.
Next came an elderly woman who was very nice and charming but insisted that I should shoot young girls. I regret a bit for not being more persuasive, as she looked super-sweet.
My third approach was a young men who looked a bit arty, so I hoped he might say yes but he refused me pretty brusquely (NB I didn't care at all). So I went on to my last approach (there wasn't much going on in the streets, but I didn't want to stop with a failure and a meager success quote of 33%) which was a lady which claimed first to have not any time but I told her it takes just a second and so it did. :)
I had preset my camera on manual with the correct exposure, so I just had to click away when someone said yes.
The results were pretty encouraging so I'd love to continue this as a lose project, let's when I discover the next time that I have balls. :)
P.S. I finally even decided to start a whole project around street photography. The fruits can be seen at http://street.hspho.to/.
