Dollar Portraits

From time to time I'm reminded that what I do here reaches people. Yesterday was one of those times when I received an email from a recent migrant to Sydney. He had discovered my site through APUG which is an analog photography community I take part in. He expressed his concern at walking up to strangers and asking for their portraits but took great comfort in seeing my success and felt confident enough to try it himself. He told me he was going to go out today to do some shooting with his film camera and I wish him all the best. One more person out on the streets saying hi to a stranger in an all too busy city can't be all that bad!

His email prompted me to get started on something I've been meaning to do for a while. An evolving guide to taking street portraits. I say evolving because I'm certainly no expert and I plan on adding to it as I learn more. It won't be all technical photography stuff. I will concentrate on how to pick subjects, approach people, opening lines and body language as well as some of the photography skills required to make a quick portrait work in an environment you have little control over.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to answer some questions for an interview by a fellow photographer, Todd Norbury. I've known Todd online for a while now. He's a dedicated photographer continually putting out quality work and I was pleased to be interviewed by him.

You can read the interview here and check out some of his work here.

Just a quick note to say thanks for the support to Arran Salerno. He's a graphic designer and photographer who shares many of my passions and is a bigger photo gear freak than I am. Check out his blog at arransalerno.com

Also a big thanks to Aaron Sheehan who's a recent victim to b&w film. One tog at a time we're stealing the digital youth back to analog. His photo blog can be found at aaronsheehanphotography.com

For as long as I've been flushing out this project I never did think of or have the urge to go Googling for other projects of similar nature. I figured there will be others all with their own objectives and methods. As far as I was concerned it did not matter who is doing it or how they are doing it, I just knew it was a good idea and that there will be others.

Today I finally did go looking and found a few.

Thomas Hawk has started a project not long ago where he gives $2 to homeless people that ask him for money in return for a portrait. There are a few photographers that have taken to the idea and have started their own little project as a result. Justin Korn is one of them. He calls his project BW$P and has a few nice ones up already. There is also a Flickr group started by Thomas called $2 Dollar Portraits

I'm sure there have been many others over the years and many more to come. I will report on them as I find them. It's fantastic to see other photographers doing something good for their community. If you'd like to participate, it's as easy as grabbing a camera and clicking a shutter.