100 Strangers Projects - Why?, or Why Not?

sirch

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I think it's because I really don't see the point
Did you see @blakester's 100 strangers projects? e.g. - https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/100-strangers-complete-15th-july-2016.590886/post-7337370

IMHO some of the images were truly fascinating and personally I much prefer them to most "street", I guess anything done well can be engaging but candid and street just seem random and opportunistic where as making the most of an individual portrait during a short, chance encounter takes real creativity and photographic skill I think.
 
Did you see @blakester's 100 strangers projects?

I did, and whilst those images are fab (just like Nige's), it's not something I would do myself, or derive any pleasure from [today]. Probably worthy of a separate thread I think, because a 100 nurses, or 100 bin men, or 100 amazing people in my local community would all pique my interest far more than 100 randomers. Why did you take their picture? Because they said yes? Because they looked interesting (and said yes!)? Because they had yellow on and your background was yellow? Surely that's the very defintion of random and opportunistic?

It takes courage and confidence to walk up to a stranger and ask to take their photograph. Fair play to those that do it. And don't misunderstand me - I'm not saying it's pointless and bad. I'm just saying that it's not for me.
 
I do much prefer candid street photography if I'm honest, or even street photography of scenes devoid of people. The problem is that it's very difficult to do well. Like most things, practice really helps, and I don't have the free time to constantly wander the streets looking for photos, so most of my street photography is "grabbed" when I get the chance rather than being constantly developed and improved. Looking at my Flickr feed, I have 469 photos currently tagged as "street photography". While there are some amongst them that I think are pretty good, the majority are average.

In terms of portraits, there can be something about a street portrait of a random person that is much more interesting to me than a similar portrait of a model. Ordinary (and extraordinary) people can be very interesting to look at when photographed sometimes. I originally made my portraits because of the FPOTY theme, but I decided I'd try and push myself to get more and do a 100 strangers project. I've not made any further portraits yet however and I can sense the idea fizzling out a bit.
 
I did, and whilst those images are fab (just like Nige's), it's not something I would do myself, or derive any pleasure from [today]. Probably worthy of a separate thread I think, because a 100 nurses, or 100 bin men, or 100 amazing people in my local community would all pique my interest far more than 100 randomers. Why did you take their picture? Because they said yes? Because they looked interesting (and said yes!)? Because they had yellow on and your background was yellow? Surely that's the very defintion of random and opportunistic?

The only time I've asked strangers for a photo was during my beach life project - so they all had in common the fact that they used the beach for something.

I think random ones are more about the photographs than the subject and often are taken for aesthetic effect. 100 is too many randoms to look at - especially if they are mostly (or all) the same picture repeated with different faces as Blakesters was. Boring after a dozen or so - although presented as a wall of pictures it might be more interesting.
 
I've requested that the mods split the 100 strangers discussion off into another thread, I'm sure they have got nothing better to do :) and if we are quick we might get a bit of a sensible debate before the philistines turn up to trash it.
 
I've requested that the mods split the 100 strangers discussion off into another thread, I'm sure they have got nothing better to do :)

Luckily, i'm on a couple of days annual leave so I've had chance to sort this one for you - and, as the weathers minging at the moment, I don't actually have anything better to do - if it had been dry, I'd have been off on the bike instead...

...and if we are quick we might get a bit of a sensible debate before the philistines turn up to trash it.

Good luck - sadly, they never seem to take any time off...
 
So...

At some level TBH I really don't see the difference between 100 interesting looking people on the street and 100 refuse operatives ;)

I've seen collections of photos of say ex-miners and they are just photos of people, usually staged, all in the same format. For me a 100 strangers project, at least the ones I have seen, seeks out people who have more often than not put quite a lot of effort into their personal style and appearance and that in and of itself is interesting. Also they are usually intentional portrait photos, or at least the successful ones are, i.e. the subject and photographer have worked together, found background and presumably tried to draw out something of the subject's character.

Surely that's the very defintion of random and opportunistic?
But for say a nurses project how did the nurses become nurses? how did they end up in the project, would such project just catalogue all nurses or would it select, a) those that agree to be photographed and b) those that either "look" interesting or have an interesting back-story?

We obviously all have different preferences and I am happy to admit that there is very little "street" that engages me at all, for me most it is either just a snap of some people or seems gratuitous and exploitative of the subject and makes me uncomfortable but not in a meaningful way.
 
I've rarely if ever done posed shots but I loved @blakester 's 100 strangers series.
They were extremely well photographed but what made it for me was the mini-commentary about the person involved that accompanied each photo, that commentary drew me into each photo making me much more a part of it (if that makes sense). :)
 
When I first became aware of Niall McDiarmid's Crossing Paths project I made sure I got my name down for the book when it was coming out. I like the idea behind the project and the way the pictures looked, the use of colour in particular. But when he followed it up with Town to Town I'd lost interest. It felt like it was riding on the back of the first book to me. His third book, Via Vauxhall, I did buy because it was a different to the first two being themed on an area.

What I was trying to do with my beach portraits was show the range of reasons for visiting the beach as well as the people.The advantage of this was that in most cases the reason for visiting the beach was visible in the portrait. It was part of a bigger project too, rather than a project in itself.

With portraits of strangers I think they are better when accompanied by a short story - as Blakster's are. But is there a need to make 100? That's just an internet thing IMO.

Without some explanation they are just random pictures of random people - often chosen because they look 'interesting' (see also Bruce Gilden's Face). Although they may possibly represent archetypes I suppose.

A group of pictures of nurses, shepherds, or whatever could work in the same way as the Bechers series of cooling towers in a total being greater than the sum of its parts kinda way.
 
As @gramps said one of the significant contributing factors to Blakester's projects was the few sentences he put with each stranger to give context. I suppose your beach portraits are a kind of environmental portraiture where the environment itself adds a story to the image. And ultimately I suppose it is very much a personal thing, very much about how one's brain reacts to faces.
 
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