Typical Targets: Pretty Girls

This is more of a rant of a blog post, unlike my last Target-based post which was more moral-themed. But yes, it’s about certain targets too. This time, the targets be Pretty Girls.

Honestly, it is kind of.. no, it is pretty darn irritating to have people either:

1. Load their photo stream with a vast majority of nothing but pretty girls, or
2. Post a photo of a pretty girl but try to pass it off as something else using the caption when it is obviously just a clear and sharp and well-exposed and ordinary picture of a pretty girl.

Ok, ok, to be fair~ On the street I’ve shot my fair share of good looking people. And obviously, more girls than guys. (I am in love with a woman, you know..) I understand the appeal. But I’ve deleted a vast majority of those photos because it doesn’t say anything else other than “here’s a good looking person”.

Obviously the main subject is that lady on the left. But throw in the guy with the camera on the right and does it change the picture? I hope it does.. fuck, it better! lol

Don’t believe me? Check my archives and flickr stream, there’s barely photos like that. And that’s also another reason why this blog post barely has any suitable photos too, and the girls aren’t even that gorgeous either~

I don’t know. I just find it to be quite lame to try and pass off what’s blatantly a picture of a pretty girl as something artsy or as street photography – because there’s no human interaction, no juxtaposition, no message in the photo, no intended styling (like in fashion photos), nothing! It’s just the girl on the bloody street~

Especially street snipers.. Those folks who do street portraiture (full-bodied ones too) with their telephoto lenses, be it candid or not. I follow a few snipers on flickr because I’m not one myself and, hey, admittedly their stuff can be nice to look at, with all the lovely bokeh and all.

A rather typical sniper-ish photo. But taken with a normal lens.

But it gets old a little quick when all their photos are pretty much quite the same thing – good looking people, mostly girls, walking on the street, and they all have the same mannerisms too. 

However, if photos of pretty girls is exactly what you’re going for, like something like Danny Santos’ set “Women being beautiful“, then I guess that’s ok lah. Don’t get me wrong, I like his light framing stuff and love his rain pictures hor, I’m just using him as an example ‘cuz it’s the only set that comes to mind.

Pretty Girl? Not a pretty girl? The bokeh is supposed to make you wonder. But the main theme about this photo is still the prettiness of the girl. I'm not passing it off as something else.

But, really lah.. if you wanna make very, very soft almost-porn for yourself with a sensor of decent quality and share it with others, share it for what it is can? As a photo of a pretty girl, not as something else.

Or at least catch pretty girls doing something interesting or weird rather than just walking down the street, looking into space and then you take an average photo of that. 

I know I’m kao-pei-ing (complaining) about something that’s normal due to testosterone levels, but aiyah, it does get a bit irritating at times please, lol.

Easy Targets: The Not So Fortunate

In street photography.. or, heck, any form of photography.. there’re always some pictures that are pretty cliche for a number of reasons. The one I’m concerned about here would be pictures which have the not so fortunate as the main subject.

Not so fortunate? Well, the definition of that sort of person might be different depending on where you call home, but let’s just assume that it would cover homeless people, beggars, very poor people, or tissue sellers..

Tissue sellers are common here in Singapore. Tissue sellers that use prosthesis as stands for their wares..? Not so common.

They’re easy targets for street photographers, new and seasoned. Why? Well.. they’re not so ‘ordinary’ as compared to regular people on the street, I guess.. they’re probably sitting down somewhere off to the side so they’re literally ‘sitting ducks’.. and some of us assume that taking their picture ‘tells a story’, or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.

Personally, I’ve shot a few of such pictures myself. But I do try to refrain from doing so. Mainly because it’s.. well.. pretty cliche and overdone, and because (as you may have read before somewhere) that taking pictures of people because of their predicaments is just plain exploitation.

One of my first 'real' street photographs. Not very gripping, but I thought the dog was a cool element.

But something else has popped up in my mind regarding all this ‘to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot’ issue regarding not so fortunate people.

I’m not sure how to properly phrase it, so here’s a scenario:

Stranger: I see your portfolio has very little homeless people in it.

Me: Yeah, I try to avoid taking them in general.

Stranger: Why? Is it because you think they’re not good enough to be in your photos? Aren’t they people too?

Me: Dafuq!?

Here’s another scenario:

Stranger: I see you have some pictures of homeless people.

Me: Yeah, sometimes I think they make pretty cool or interesting subjects.

Stranger: You’re just using their plight to make yourself another ‘typical street photograph’.

Me: Dafuq!?

Sometimes in my mind, I speak to myself like that. It’s silly, but it isn’t all that strange a thought to have.. right?

Just another 'karang guni' auntie.. who's pushing her cart on the road with vehicles zooming past her!?

I guess what people have said before is right lah. Should you choose to take a picture of someone who isn’t so fortunate in life (or any photo of anything) just be sure it tells the story you want it to tell in a respectable way. Or something like that..

The other problem with that is that even if your intentions are right and the photo looks appropriate, there are bound to be people who take it the wrong way and call you out for exploitation. But one can’t please everyone right~?

Old dude sifting through trash - Exploitation/Cliche. Throw in some juxtaposed text - Cool/Story-told?

I guess what really matters is that you’re true to yourself and are happy with the picture you’ve taken, processed, and posted online lah. Bottom-line right there.

Post event shooting thoughts (Part 2 – Self)

Continuing from my previous post (about Gear) regarding thoughts that came about after shooting for a company event, this one’s gonna talk about the Self.

Note: I’ve only been through this paid event photography thing once ever, so I’m no expert, but I can provide a noobish perception of it.

In part 1, I mentioned how I thought that I couldn’t do the job because the gear I had seemed inadequate to me at the time, but having never even shot an event where there were other people actually counting on the photos I was producing.. well, no prize for guessing that feelings of inadequacy of self was building up inside me too.

The main worry was that if I fuck up, then the client’s visual documentation of their event is fucked as well. What’s more, they’re paying me to do the job too. So there was stress from both an interpersonal and a business point.

But, eventually I did realise that these folks have seen my pictures of an old event of theirs that I took for fun before, though it was a rather different event..

Point is~ the client has seen my photos of a somewhat similar event and they were quite pleased with the results and were eager to hire me. That’s the main thing that I should’ve been focusing on the start.

And~ the same probably is so for you too, if you happen to be going through the same thing right now.  Your potential client has already seen what you can do and wants you to work for them and produce something similar to what they’ve seen and like.

K, that might add on some pressure instead, but do remember that people like what you can do and don’t think you suck, else you wouldn’t be asked to photograph their thing.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the phrase from The Matrix – “Temet Nosce”, or “Know Thyself”.

For me, the bigger source of stress was taking guests at the event. I’m a pretty introverted guy and even when I do street photography, I’m like Joe Wigfall or Daido Moriyama – I don’t shove my camera in people’s faces and I don’t let them know I’m taking their picture.

So taking photos of complete strangers at an event and asking them to pose for a picture wasn’t really my thing, but it had to be done.

What I should’ve realised is that I have over a 100 Facebook albums where the candid and portrait photography elements were pretty much the same as was required at the event. I’m already sort of prepared for this scary shit, just that I’ve never done it officially.

Chances are you probably are prepared to photograph your event through ways that seemed so trivial and normal to you. It’s like the Karate Kid – you ‘wax on, wax off’/'take off your jacket, put it back on’ enough times and before you know it, you’re kicking ass / dodging Jackie Chan.

Anyway, it’s a scary thing officially shooting for money for the first time but there are good external and internal reasons for you to believe in yourself.

Part 1