Portrait Photography
Skills
Photography
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. ~ Neale Walsch
Portrait Photography
The best resource that we have found on portrait photography is ‘Stories and Faces’ by Oded Wagenstein.
As Oded described in his book, viewers don’t really want you to show them people, they want you to use portraits to tell them a story based on your interpretation of the world. As a result, we’d encourage you to view yourself as a visual storyteller, not a photographer. This applies to any type of photography, including landscape or portrait photography. So, how do you do this?
Using Portraits to Tell a Story
First, focus on evoking an emotional response in your viewer based on your emotional interpretation of the situation. As Steve McMurry, who took the iconic image of the Afghan girl for National Geographic writes, “A picture of a guy in the street in New Guinea with a bone through his nose is interesting to look at. But for it to be a really good photograph, it has to communicate something about what it is like to live with a bone through your nose.” And as Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote, “it is an illusion that photos are made with the camera, they are made with the eye, heart and head”. Second, try to create photos that tell part of a story and let your viewer fill in the gaps. As an example, take a look at the above photo of a farmer that I took in a remote region of Guatemala. How does it make you feel? And what do you think his story is?
Engaging with Subjects
I use two approaches to engaging with my subjects.
The first approach is what Oded Wagenstein calls the hunter approach. This approach involves taking a picture of a subject without engaging with them. This is a great approach when you want to take a picture of a subject in an “unguarded moment”. Here’s two examples. In the first photo, the subject did not realize I was taking a photo of her and in the second photo, she did, changing her reaction. I prefer the first photo since it’s a more “unguarded moment”. Unfortunately, the depth of field is shallower (f/1.8) in the second photo (vs. f/4 in the first photo) so in retrospect I should have approached the subject with my depth of field set to f/1.8.
The second approach is what Oded Wagenstin calls the involved approach. This approach involves involving your subject in the process. If I am using this approach, I always smile and ask my subject whether I can take their photo? However, I often get more involved, engaging my subject and learning more about their story. This approach is easier if you speak the subject’s language. It’s also easier if you are an extrovert. I love this more involved approach because it enables me to take photos that evoke an emotional response and tell a story. It also enables me to ask my subject to move so that the background and/or space around my subject is better.
Our Photography Resources
We have covered the key resources that we use to plan overland expeditions above, including iOverlander in the Central America, Mexico, South America and the US and Park4Night in Europe.
Here are a few additional related sites that we use for trip planning:
- Expedition Portal forums is a decent source of information on overland expeditions but it’s a bit hard to find relevant information on it
- The Road Chose Me is a great source of information re. overlanding in Africa and Australia
- Wandering Bird is a website that includes some great articles on overlanding in Europe
- WikiOverland is a great source of information on overlanding through over 80 countries
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