Just in case anyone wants to know what it looks like when you're not doing it right and you're out of your depth...
This kind of street'ish photography, can have a weird effect on you and can cloud your perception, because as the day went on my confidence grew and grew, it became almost like a new reality where the usual rules of social boundaries no longer existed.
Walking through a park, I noticed a gang of about 10 youths, so I walked across the grass field and introduced myself, addressing the guy's first as a sign of respect in order to avoid any hostility from the alpha male of the group.
I then explained the whole project thing, and picked a couple of subjects who happened to be giving me fairly good eye contact, I did this by asking what their name was.
So then I pointed to somewhere I thought the light was fairly good, and asked them to go and stand there.
Below is the expression I got from the girl and she was clearly uncomfortable, and no doubt embarrassed in front of all her friends, but worse, this uncomfortable emotion was spreading among the on looking group, flash backs of act's crashing and burning in the 'show me the funny' filled my head.
At this moment it was like starring into what seemed like a photographic abyss and suddenly fear and panic quickly began to set in, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall flat on my face in front of everyone there.
I knew I needed to breakup up her expression but I also knew "look at the camera...smile" wasn't going to work as it would look completely fake and would likely add to the discomfort felt by everyone there.
So I decided I needed to get her animated, I asked her as confidently as I could to jump as high as she could in the air, she then began to laugh like below.
Her friend then began to mess around and do pretend model poses like below.
The rest of the group began to relax and enjoy themselves.
I then walked over to the group and showed them a shot I liked, like below.
They then began to shower both me and the guy with praise and make comments about how good my 'camera' was, and also began to open up themselves.
At this point I was just glad that I could walk away with my head held high, instead of in shame, so I decided to take my chips off the table while I was ahead, and gave them my business card so they could go to my website for a free web sized copy.
I then got a couple of emails from the group later that night.
So the lesson I learnt was, that when things are not working, it's important to at least give the impression your still confident about what your doing, and then get your subjects expression animated as soon as possible if it doesn't happen on it's own accord.