Approach is a funny word.

It can mean: “make advances to someone”, which is what I
touched on last week.

It can also mean: “ideas or actions intended to deal with
a problem or situation”, which is what I’m going to talk
about today.

That is: you’ve seen someone who you’d like to photograph,
you’ve approached them, talked and now have a few minutes
of their time to make something happen.

Now what?

To recap my preamble from last week…..You’ve got to have
some idea of how you see, and fit into, the world. Some idea
of how you want to show things. What you want to show.

Me? I like my work to look a bit like documentary shots but
with some kind of formality built in that hints at the fact that
these are set up fotos. The other thing I sometime do is just
shoot plain, straight-up pictures of peoples faces.

This shot is a case in point:

Tracey, Salton City, California, 2003

There are 2 restaurants in Salton City. You’ve got the Super
Burger and you’ve got The Alamo. I used Salton City as a
base for 7 days of shooting, so I’d be in and out of those 2
places on a regular basis. I kept seeing Tracey, who was a
waitress at The Alamo. Every time I saw her she had a diff-
erent hair-doo. My last day there she had these fantastic ring-
lets. How could I resist? All I had to do was ask her to sit up
against the wall there and shoot a few frames.

As an aside, and as a further point to what I discussed last
week….the people you choose to photograph partly define
who you are, how you see, what’s important to you. Choosing
this person over that person is one of the decisions you, as a
photographer, must make. The idea is to shoot enough raw
material, enough faces and situations to be able to edit down
to a cohesive sequence of images that will, somehow, convey
what you think is important to look at. My editing room floor
is littered with shots I love, but don’t move my thesis forward.
I feel tender about them, might use them as “singles”, but they
just don’t contribute enough to what I want to show.

So, anyway…..in a case like Tracey, above, or this:

Migrant worker, Mecca, California, 2003

When it’s just a shot of someone’s head, all you’ve really got to do,
after your initial approach, is frame them, focus, give a tiny bit of
direction (”look over there”) and push the button.

In both these cases the shots were taken within 5 feet of where I
met the subject. In both cases I shot 3 frames.

Okay……….

When you’re working with strangers on the street, after you’ve
met and chatted with the person you’re going to shoot, you prob-
ably don’t have a whole lot of time. (Sometimes you do, though,
and it’s important to be able to figure out how much time the per-
son is willing to give you.You can ask, you know.)

In this case I needed to figure out fairly quickly where and how I
was going to shoot this gal.

Playboy, Ottawa, 2001

I looked around and found a spot that had a receding, graphic
background. Just the type of location I was using when I shot
this particular project. (”ROIDS).

We walked over and I asked her to stand there and I began to
frame the shot. But it all seemed too pretty and non-threatening.
If you look at “ROIDS (it’s there, on my web site, under Personal)
you’ll see that all the shots are kind of ominous. So I asked the
subject’s friend to put her hand on her shoulder. Then I framed
the shot so you couldn’t see who the arm was connected to and,
voila, Bob’s yer uncle.

There’s a certain amount of practice involved in stuff like this.
But also, I believe, a lot of instinct. (Michael Stipe, the singer
in REM, says it’s the artists job to develop, follow and trust their
instincts.) Where I came up with the idea of having that arm in
the shot, well, I can’t tell you. Except, maybe, to say it was in-
stinct and the willingness to try something because it might
just work.

What I mean to say is, once you’ve got someone to shoot, don’t
get all weird and panicky. Be efficient, don’t worry too much
(worry just enough) and take what they will give you, in terms
of their willingness to collaborate. Remember that many people
are interested in your process and willing to take time and direct-
ion to make something happen. Even with a stranger. Don’t be
afraid to move the subject around, ask them to stand “here” and
then stand “there”. Try some stuff.

Probably most of the tension in a situation like this is coming from
you. So just be yourself, make no promises you can’t keep and be
kool, baby, be kool.

Okay, is this getting boring?

One last one, then:

Kelvin Goodman and daughter, Clarksdale, Mississippi, 2004

I met Kelvin, his daughter and his wife on a corner in Clarksdale. I
liked the idea of setting them up so that the daughter was separate
from the parents. Kelvin’s wife didn’t want to be in the shot so I just
used Kelvin. (We make do with what we can get.) Anyway, I set them
up, there on the corner. Kelvin’s wife is over beside the baby, just out-
side the frame. I had to direct Kelvin, ask him to look over to his left.
The baby was fussing a little bit, so the mom came in to settle her.
Once all that was sorted I took this shot.

I tell you all this to reinforce what I said, just above this shot. That is:
take your time, figure shit out, be fluid and flexible, hone your instincts.
Know that every shot doesn’t work out. Know that some shots you think
will totally suck turn out to be great and some you think will be great will,
once you see them as photographs, really suck.

Like I keep saying here on drool…..it’s all about the process, putting in
the hours and desire. Always desire.

I want to add here, if you’re still with me, that I’ll be giving an 8 week
workshop (that’s one nite a week for 8 weeks) this summer, thru SPAO’s
workshop program. Check it out, if you’re interested. Believe me, this
stuff is difficult to write about. I think that if you want to learn more
about this stuff, hands-on is where it’s at. In the course description I
sent in to SPAO the last line read: “Wimps need not apply”. I’m pretty
sure that that sentence won’t make it thru the SPAO edit. But it still
holds true. You can’t shoot this way if you’re a wimp.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Here’s the cover and a couple of pages from this year’s CBC Annual
Report.

And a bit of a campaign I shot, to recruit nurses.

VANESSA WINSHIP

I bumped into Vanessa Winship’s portfolio of Turkish schoolgirls.
Specifically, schoolgirls from the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia.
Recently executed, breathtaking shots.

Above 2 photos by Vanessa Winship

A simple idea, beautifully done. These images bring to mind
August Sander, with their sociological and anthropological take
on this subject; and Bernd and Hilla Becher, for their stringent,
typological approach.

Not to take anything away from these gorgeous photographs,
but this project reminds me that often the most effective,
beautiful and important work a photographer can do can
also be simple and straight forward. The trick is to find
a subject and then get off your sorry ass and just go and
photograph it.

Here’s a link to Vanessa’s site. Go have a look.