Photographic Expedition

The long-delayed adventure into photographing people has begun.

I've been taking landscape and macro photographs with my digital camera for a couple of years now, but I've never seriously taken photographs of people before.

The first time I really got the urge to photograph people was in China. I went out alone on several occasions to take photos of Beijing; I walked down streets crowded with vendors and ventured into Hutongs, the classic one story living quarters that divide parts of central Beijing in to small alleys.

The people that I ran into along the way fascinated me: vendors, the elderly and children playing. However, I only took pictures from a distance and avoided being seen doing so. My mandarin is good enough to ask someone if I can take their picture - but it's not good enough to give a greater explanation why I would want to. So, because I lacked the ability to communicate my intent, and I didn't want to come off as some stupid, lost tourist, I didn't take all the photographs I might have liked to.

I regret it to a degree now, as I did then - but, I promised myself that when I got back home to the United States, where no language barrier would exist, that I would start to take photographs of people.

This assignment forced me to finally take the plunge.

Asking people if I could photograph them felt uncomfortable, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first time I interviewed a stranger. I took photographs in a few places: outside of Holloway Commons, in Hamilton Smith's foyer, the lawn in front of Thompson Hall, and the courtyard in front of the Library.

The photographs I took in Hamilton Smith and in front of HoCo were not really intended to be of any certain student. I sort of just set-up and started shooting. I wanted the photographs to capture the hurried and crowded feelings associated with student life.

I took the photograph in Hamilton Smith in between classes when I knew a huge number of students would be funneling through the main doors. I set up on the balcony two flights up and took shots looking down into the foyer. I set my exposure for 1 second so the students hurriedly rushing in and out the doors would be blurry - showing motion.

Thankfully, when I ventured out onto the lawn to take photographs of specific people the first person I ran into was a friend (he's the one seen sitting on the cement wall that wraps around the flag pole). He was reviewing for a test with two of his friends and was more than willing to let me take pictures while they were talking. So, that was sort of a nice way to ease myself into asking people to take their pictures.

Finally, I found the Organic Farming Club's food-stand, and a couple playing with their dog. The couple was nice and obliged, but the dog got tired after three Frisbee throws and lied down in the shade.

I'm happy with the photographs I took. There were some potentially great ones that I botched, like this one:












But, overall, I'm just happy to have simply started taking photographs of people at all.