A portrait shoot

Rather than write a bland post about shooting portraits like many others have covered, I thought I would rather write about my experience with a particular shoot. In this case, I hooked up with Lyosuke a performance artist in Sydney.

Preparation and constraints

We had an hour up our sleeves and drew a 5-minute walking boundary off where he was going to perform. With those constraints, I had to exactly where to shoot, what to shoot, as you cannot blindly walk into a portrait shoot without knowing the looks you wanted to go for, and the time of day as it dictates the light, the people traffic and other variables, for example security guards around buildings.

Understanding the subject

When shooting people, nothing translates better than having someone with confidence and having the “it” factor. I knew Lyosuke had both in the way he performed on the streets, the videos he published and his self-portraits. My ask of him was to wear a suit and pants, which wasn’t a problem given he performed in one, but also white singlet and was ok to go topless to show his tattoos. He was cool with all of the above. Given this, my job was to then match his look with surrounds and lucky enough I know the area inside out and knew what would work given his look.

Planning: Mood board and shot list

I created a mood board so he can get a feel for the shots we were going after. I don’t replicate, but it’s always good to have something visual for the other party to see the target. Pictures paint a thousand words.

Based on Lyosuke, the location, the mood board, I then listed out a series of shots that I wanted to go for. I ended up with a shot list of 15x shots but I knew how these things turned out - one thing leads to another and before you know it, it’s quite easy to get on a tangent. Tangents, or going with the flow, are essential when collaborating with people as you need to allow the exhange of energies and ideas to flow between souls, however we had an hour and I had 15 shots to get through and these shots are not as easy as turning up to the location and nailing the shot in 1-go. Through experience I knew to mark my top 3 shots for the day because if all else fails, I know that I will have my my 3.

Gear selection, less is more

The next thing on the agenda is gear. Also through experience, less is more. Less is also constraining, which is both beautiful and can be annoyingly frustrating if the shot list demands certain lenses, bodies and equipment. Carrying a heavy bag and swapping, changing equipment within an hour with a shot list to go through while having to convey the feeling of the scene to the model can get overwhelming, hence, less is more. There were compromises with my choices - no medium format film, 1x roll hp5 on Yashica T5.. and T5 over other point and shoots primarily because of the 0.35 meter focus, and the point and shoot because of spontaneity and movement. The other piece of kit was Leica M10P with Voightlander 21mm with flash, as the shot list required it.

Execution: Flow and Communication

We hit 4 spots, all within a minute of each other, all chosen to keep the momentum going. It’s quite important to flow and let moment roll. Stopping for long periods kills momentum.

After meeting Lyosuke I immediately knew to start simple, as English is not his first language and Japanese is limited to say the least.