From: Jonathan Bailey (quryhous@midcoast.com)
Date: 01/01/03-09:32:54 PM Z
Shannon-
> Any other suggestions for helping people to relax and open up in front
of a rather large camera?
I've been shooting with the 8x10 since the mid-70's - and I have a portrait
project I've been working on with the 8x10 for the past ten years....
Actually, the most relaxed and psychologically "available" portraits I have
done were made with the Diana camera. In 1979, after a three-year
bartending stint which I knew was ending, and over a period of several
weeks, I asked each of the afternoon regulars to step outside so I could do
their portraits. It was the first "project" I'd even done with the Diana -
and I was stunned at how relaxed and natural these people were: completely
at ease, even lighthearted, in front of what is obviously a toy. And this
has been born out again and again as I work in the streets wherever I
travel, but most especially in Mexico.
The tools you choose to work with very much dictate the results. Avedon
made portraits using the 8x10 and subdued the power-elite into a kind of
submission. Big cameras are given to that. Nick Nixon uses the 8x10 to
photograph his wife's sisters every year (exposing just one sheet of film in
the process) - and while he does not use the 8x10 to intimidate the way
Avedon might have, the portraits he produces are very much about the large
camera.
The big camera says, "I am serious and this is a serious event." The Diana
can be used in a completely serious fashion - indeed, it should be - but it
is obvious to even children that it's not a glitzy (read expensive) piece of
hardware, and people respond accordingly.
Do you disappear under the dark cloth to make your large camera portraits?
What do you think that does for the "ambience" of the shoot? Even covering
your face with a 35mm camera changes the dynamic when shooting people. I
almost never cover my face when shooting people with the Diana - preferring
to maintain eye contact with them while holding the camera at neck or chest
level, shooting intuitively. I have found shooting like that becomes more
like having "a gesture" with those concerned.
Happy New Year.
Jon
www.jonathan-bailey.com
Tenants Harbor, Maine
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