02-01-12 – Go Out and Get Some Strange

That first alternate…looks like he’s getting ready to cut himself a nice prime hand steak.

Yeah, between the look on his face and the way he’s holding the knife, it kinda looks like he might be fixin’ to cut hisself a fellah. Perhaps that guy with the camera who just blinded him with his flash. 😕

http://www.fark.com/comments/6916669/Theme-of-Farktography-Contest-No-352-Go-out-get-some-strange-Details-rules-in-first-post-LGT-next-weeks-contest&new=1#new

/contest linky thing

To paraphrase the great Betty White; I’m not on Facebook, but from what I can tell, its a tremendous waste of time 😆
Seriously though, U-man, your “Tin Man” B is very cool.

ennuipoet that set is full of good stuff, must’ve been hard to choose from all your photos for this contest!

I had a surprising number of shots to choose from. I couldn’t find one I was looking for of a homeless man who demanded I take his picture. I did consider another similarly “requested” photo, but didn’t like it as much as the three I entered …

Take my picture!

Farktographer in that particular corner of the bar, the only (major) lighting is provided by a single bulb housed in one of those metal caps they use on large CO2, etc canisters (they’re all around the bar.) So the light just happened to catch him (well, I hope) in mid-swig. Thanks for asking!

No need to push as close as like a 28mm (portrait style is usually done with something around 80-100mm – I like using my 50mm, but with sensor size that comes out to about 80), the point is to just not get a 300-400 lens and telephoto in on someone.

The aisles between tables for recruiters to set up in the student union center ballroom were rather narrow, so I chose the 28mm (“normal” focal length for my APS-C sized Rebel T2i) to get a wide enough field of view for a full length portrait. The other option for me would have been the 18-55mm kit lens that tops out at f/4.?. Being indoors, I knew that I would need one of the faster prime lenses from my collection. The next size up would have been the 50mm f/1.4, which would equate to 80mm for 35mm size sensors, and conventional wisdom would dictate that for portraiture, but I knew some shots would need to be up close and personal.

If you look at my photo of the ensign, I was backed up all the way to the table on the other side of the aisle in order to get my opening shot (available on Flickr) of him and the petty officer there with him. I did crop the portraits of each of them individually a bit. The steel mill worker photo is the full frame, and I pretty much had my forearms on the table to get the upward angle since she was seated. Even though I was that close, I don’t think her features are really distorted (by the camera) all that much.

Some people saw me with camera and asked why I had it so I would explain that this week’s topic for my photography education is portraits of strangers. Then I would ask if I could take that person’s picture. One, maybe two, turned me down. The only one where I initiated the conversation was the accountant, and he asked to go into the hallway where I selected the wood panel wall for a background instead of the white painted walls. I made a print for him to give to his mom, but I didn’t see him back for the second day.

CSB: Tonight I went shopping for supplies for next week’s theme, and I had 1 each of about half of all the varieties of fruit at the grocery store. My receipt is about a mile long. I explained my reasoning to the clerk and my idea on interpreting the theme, and she thought they would be good.

Yeah, not really sure what to make of the monkey…

LOL! I thought the same thing. The description doesn’t say your subject has to be human.

Yeah, but the “get up close and personal” aspect is missing in a bunch of these (including that one). It appears the voters have noticed, however, so I’m not going to stamp my feet and get pissy.