Introduction

I’ve just had my first video meeting with my tutor for Identity and Place, during which we discussed the usual aspects of studying with OCA.  As this was the third time I had discussed these, the focus of the conversation was more a get-to-know and to establish how we were going to engage throughout this unit.  During the call I raised the fact that I had briefly read some of the course materials and in particular, was interested in the first assignment.  I pointed out that the brief for Assignment 1 filled me with dread as it required shooting portraits of people that are strangers to me.  I recalled being incredibly uncomfortable during Assignment 3 of EYV, for which my approach was to blend street photography with the humour found in Martin Parr’s work.  During the shooting, I became overly sensitive to the idea of pointing my camera at people.  It was made worse because my DSLR was so conspicuous – I likened it to having a Howitzer aimed at oneself.  Eventually I took a break from trying to shoot the assignment and went for a relaxing walk around my town with my wife.  When I stopped thinking about the anxiety, the photographs started to present themselves  and I finished with a collection of images that I was really happy with.

Assignment 1 in this course is calling for us to take 5 portraits of complete strangers. Sounds simple enough, but the portraits need be insightful in some way, so the recommendation in the brief is to spend some time getting to know the subjects before trying to take their portrait.  This immediately raised some questions that I wanted to attempt to answer before beginning the unit and re-visit once I’ve completed the assignment.

Questions raised about photographing strangers

What causes me to be anxious?

The anxiety of approaching someone to take their picture comes, I believe, from the fear of a negative reaction that could range from simple rudeness to aggression.  The worst experience that I’ve had in this regard was while visiting Morocco a few years ago.  I already knew that the people of Marrakesh were divided on the subject of photography and that as a mainly Muslim country, their issue with it was rooted in the belief that the act of capturing their likeness takes part of their soul.  When I arrived in the city on a photography trip, I immediately started to get incredibly negative reactions to my camera even when I wasn’t taking pictures.  The most memorable were an elderly gentleman who was sitting in the main square in the medina.  I was looking around at the sights of the people packing up their market stalls at the end of the day and how beautiful these sights were as the sun started to set.  At that point my camera was slung over my shoulder and clearly not about to be used, but this elderly gent made the effort to catch my eye so that he could utter one of the few insults that he knew the English words for.   It would have appeared that his outrage was at what might happen rather than what was actually happening.  My reaction was equally angry and my fellow photographers had to move us on before I said something potentially regretful to him.  The second incident was in the seaside town of Essaouira and was similar in many ways to the previous.  A line of women sat on the steps in the harbour and each of them flipped me the middle finger almost in unison.  My initial thought was that this would make a great photograph, but the one at the back of the line had attracted the attention of one of the fishermen who was gutting fish on the dock with a very large knife.  His subsequently threatening demeanour was enough to put me off my train of thought.  I believe that these experiences alone would be enough to put me off, but thinking about it on both occasions I did not approach them for a photograph.  Without the deliberate act of asking for the portrait, this does not explain my anxiety about taking pictures of strangers. 

Does starting a conversation help?

I started to consider whether it was my lack of engagement with the people who had reacted so negatively in Morocco was causing my to take a certain view of their behaviour based on my interpretion.  Two other encounters in the city at the time made me think that perhaps the personal connection between photographer and subject was a very important aspect of portraiture, particularly when not specifically planned.  The first encounter was when one of our party took a shot of a man with his son sitting on a moped.  I had shot the same picture moments before when the man was distracted by something and he did not see me.  However, when my friend took the shot his reaction was similar to what I had encountered previously.  He shouted at her, but perhaps my presence dissuaded him from becoming aggressive.  His parting comment as he left interested me – he shouted “We are not animals in a zoo!”.  Perhaps the voyeuristic nature of our presence as tourists was causing a reaction more than simple religious sensitivity.  The people of Marrakesh are generally fairly poor, despite the tourism and recent formation of very affluent districts.  The medina is culturally rich but most people work very hard for a living.  I wondered whether an offer of money might have changed the man’s view of my friend shooting her picture.  Maybe portraiture requires some form of transaction when it comes to working with complete strangers.

The other experience that I had was when walking through the old Jewish district of the city.  I encountered a homeless woman sitting at the side of the road who was begging for money.  I was struck be the faded state of her clothing and her sad demeanour, so I first gave her the small amount of money in my pocket.  I then gestured to the camera and to my surprise she was more than happy to be photographed.  The shot (below) was my favourite picture from the trip as even though it was a transaction that made it possible, it captures her in a natural way.  At the time, I was happy that I had captured something about the woman’s personality, her current circumstances told through the sadness in her eyes and clothing.  However, I didn’t have any kind of dialogue with her. Our encounter was an ice-breaker but not a conversation.  My experiences to date hadn’t actually explored what would happen if there had been some time spent getting to know my portrait subjects. 

I then remembered that I had asked strangers for portraits while on holiday in Canada the following year.  We were out for the day on a local vineyard and wine tasting tour and I took my camera to document the day.  After the first vineyard and the obligatory shots of vines and bottles, I decided I was more interested in the people involved in the businesses rather than straight documentary.  As each vineyard passed, I asked the person who took the tour if I could shoot their portrait.  The reactions I got ranged from enthusiastic to reluctant, but at no time was there an uncomfortable exchange between us.   I remember one lady, Terry who asked why I wanted to take a picture of ‘this old face’.  The answer was that she had striking blue eyes that lit up her face – her portrait is as interesting to me now as it was when I shot it because of her eyes.  By the end of the day (and having sampled a fair amount of wine), I had gotten into the swing of engaging, chatting and then shooting my subjects.  The whole experience became easier as my confidence grew.

The Portraits

Ideas on how to approach strangers

My concerns had clearly come from having never really tried to shoot portraits of people I didn’t know until the wine tour in Canada.  Knowing that I could overcome my discomfort if I wanted to, I started to consider some ideas for approaching people in Assignment 1.

• Cameras – Over the past few years, I have been collecting and shooting film cameras of a variety of ages and formats.  This hobby has often led to me being stopped in the street by a passerby who is interested in the camera I am using.  It strikes me that when there is a something of interest, complete strangers will talk to each other about it.  I’ve observed the same with people who own dogs.

• “Please Help with my Project” – perhaps the simplest way to engage with people would be to advertise that I am looking for help with this assignment.   By giving people the option to engage with me on something that might interest them, the discomfort of my starting the conversation would be greatly reduced.  The subsequent conversation would still be natural and the resulting photographs would not be staged with prior knowledge of the subject.

• Friends of friends – another way of engaging with complete strangers would be to gain the support of friends to facilitate introductions with their friends.  As above, this separates the discomfort of the initial engagement while preserving the separation.  

• Shop Owners – a number of other students on Identity and Place had approached the assignment by going into shops or businesses and asking for a portrait of the proprieter.   This offers separation as well as lots of visual context and a structure to the shoot.  One of the key learnings from Context and Narrative was to have some consistency in the approach to making work.  In my case, the first time I successfully achieved this was during the self-portraiture assignment, where I had a consistent way of generating the words to be projected on my face and also to the technical shoot itself.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the meeting with my tutor was very helpful in guiding my thoughts on Assignment 1.  Naturally, I have a lot of work to complete in Part 1 before I need to shoot it.  At the time of writing, my thoughts are revolving around my portrait series being about life in the current pandemic.  People are naturally cautious about being close to others and in the current lockdown situation, we are all supposed to be at home with the exception of exercise and vital journeys – this doesn’t fit well with the assignment.  However, by the time I reach that stage in the course, there is some optimism about relaxation of some of the rules we are living under.  I am hoping that because of the way our lives have been restricted that people will actually be more amenable to being approached for a chat – we have all missed human contact.  I will be revisiting this post and its assumptions when I reach that point in the coursework.