1000 Words
Shot with:
Nikon D300 w/ Nikkor 17-55mm lens at f/2.8 on a tripod.
Photoshop is my friend.
Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words, sometimes not, but this one here is definintely a solid hundred. This was shot downtown vancouver with the cooperation of my very willing friends to be my lab rats. I hope I’m forgiven for shortening my friend’s life because I’ve made him smoke so many times now just so I can trial and error to capture a smoke picture.. even though here, the smoke is not even all that noticeable unless you really pay attention.
I have 2 versions of this picture: one darker, and one brighter. I’m definitely in a dark mood these days and I think this fits my subject well, at least the way I see him. The cool thing that I’m finding about photography is that I get to try to impose what I see in my friends onto an image, whether it’s 100% true or not is subjective, but, in my artsy fartsy brain, it is. While we were doing this I was trying to explain to my other friend why I’m suddenly so into taking pictures of people because I used to be all about the scenery shots and buildings. I never really thought about why exactly I like taking people shots so I was having a bit of trouble articulating it but it turns out that I like taking pictures of real people.
Sure, the pretty tv/movie people (read: fake people. Comon, nobody sleeps with all that shit on their face and if you do you have self esteem issues.) are nice to stare at but I think it’s more interesting when you can find the right way to photograph someone and make them look good. It’s even better when you know your subject and can try to make the image emit a feeling or trait that suits them.. well “suits them” in my eyes at least.
Anyhow, the picture above, is supposed to be Stoic. I think my subject is Stoic, so that’s my fancy pants interpretation.
Stoic [stow-ik]
Noun: a person who suffers great difficulties without showing his or her emotions.
