Strangers are just friends I haven’t met (Seattle)

July 18th, 2010

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market photographing the many interesting people there.  More precisely, I spent the afternoon in the areas immediately surrounding Pike Place Market after being told that I could not display my “Let me photograph you” sign inside the market itself.

I was ignored by hundreds and hundreds of people, which is normal when walking through a busy city, but the people who responded to my sign were quite entertaining.  I met Aaron (on the left) at a sidewalk cafe.  I ended up sitting and chatting with him and his wife for quite a while, which I much prefer to hurriedly trading a photo for a business card.  The woman on the right was thrilled that my mission was photographing interesting people and that she was one of them.  She has a “weird people” catalog on her camera, which I would like to see.


I didn’t get the name of the woman on the left, but her tattoo refers to Psalm 51, specifically verse 17.  A group of youths were singing hymns nearby, so I asked if she was with them.  Although they ultimately report to the same boss, they are on different branches of the org chart, so to speak.

I rate this outing as 80% successful.  I could have communicated better with Pike Place security.  They may have objected to my sign because they thought that I was charging for photos.  If I had explained that I was not after money, they may have been satisfied.  Several people asked how they should pose, and I was unable to direct them to my satisfaction.  Despite these problems, I met a lot of cool people and took some nice photos.  I saw homeless people, an engineer, a wedding, empassioned prayers, potheads, and a basketball-playing gorilla.  What a great city!

See all 33 photographs (HTML gallery) (Flash slideshow) (Facebook)

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Vocaloids

July 3rd, 2010

One of the photoshoots at A-Kon 21 involved a pair of Vocaloids, mascots for text-to-song software.  Miku (with green hair) is the first and most famous voice.  She sings many songs and is the star of many music videos, in which she wears a variety of outfits, including this cheerleader uniform.  Haru (in purple) is the personification of all the bad noises possible when using Miku’s software incorrectly.  She is bad at everything and drinks a lot.  Truely a tragic character.

The photoshoot itself was entertaining.  We wandered around a hotel looking for picturesque spots.  I remembered a nice view from the 16th floor, but when we took the elevator to the top, a business woman was waiting to get on.  We quickly realized that the room I had explored earlier was now being used for a business meeting and quite unavailable for our photoshoot.  Fortunately we discovered this while still in the evelator and did not walk in on the meeting itself.

We found some windows overlooking the city on a lower floor, along with some con-goers relaxing in nearby armchairs.  While we worked, they talked about how they totally knew a guy who knew a guy who worked on some top-secret stuff, man, you don’t even know.  I hope the nation’s real secrets are better kept.

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2010 Fremont Solstice Parade

June 21st, 2010

The Fremont Solstice Parade is a fun and wacky tradition here in Seattle.  Every year at the official beginning of summer, thousands of people gather to watch floats, marching bands, acrobats, super-huggers, people in costume, people out of costume, and every other strange and entertaining sort of person march down the streets of Fremont, self-proclaimed Center of the Universe.


Of course, all those flashy people attract photographers like kids to a pinata, although we try to be more gentle than the metaphor would suggest.  Several hors before the parade started, I and dozens of other shutterbugs descended on the staging area for the parade, distracting dozens of participants from their last-minute preparations.  Fortunately, the parade has a very relaxed and fun-loving atmosphere, so the participants were more than happy to be distracted.  Organization isn’t really a focus at this event.  As long as everyone ends up on the same street, it’s a success.

The parade is preceded, traditionally, dependably, and completely unofficially, by a host of bicyclists wearing ultra-light single-use costumes made of paint.  Thousands of boring photos of these cyclists clot the Internet like they clotted the street at the start of the parade.  Taking an interesting photo of someone riding a bike in a traffic jam is hard, even if that person has gold skin and sparkles in the light.  I tried to move to the parade’s endpoint to catch the cyclists as they finished the course, but had limited success for two reasons.  First, a person on a bicycle is faster than a man on foot, and second, the temperature did not break 60 degrees the whole day, encouraging the cyclists to don their street clothes as soon as possible.

Gasworks Park hosts a huge party after the parade, with all the participants and many of the spectators spending the afternoon eating, drinking, listening to music, and having a good time.  Usually there is no gap between the cyclists and the parade proper, but the cold temperatures hastened the cyclists and they arrived, dressed, and left before the parade was in sight of the park.  Seeing Gasworks empty, spectators thought the whole show was over, and some left before seeing the parade itself.


I went back out the parade route and photographed the floats an performers as they passed.  This is quite different from my usual style of photographing people, and I enjoyed the challenge.  I hope to attend more parades in the future, but I doubt other parades will be as cool as this one.


Gasworks Parks filled up after the parade finally arrived and I wandered around, photographing interesting events and striking up conversations at random.  I prefer spending a bit of time with someone and taking some photos over the course of a conversation to taking a few photos and moving on.  I’m already full of ideas for the next parade, but it’s a year away.


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A-Kon 21

June 21st, 2010

My attendance at A-Kon 21 in Dallas, TX was a surprise to everyone, including myself. Only two weeks earlier I had to suddenly plan a trip to Dallas, and the way the flights worked out left me in town over the weekend of A-Kon. I hastily made plans to attend and scheduled some photoshoots which I will document in subsequent blog posts.

Unlike Seattle, where weather is never worse than annoying, the weather in Dallas was a tangible threat.  I used Day 0 (Thursday) to investigate locations around the con center for possible use in photoshoots.  I found many picturesque places, but also found 100-degree temperatures and unrelenting sunlight.  Since many of my clients were wearing multiple layers, leather, or even full-body suits of fur and foam, leaving them outside for an hour could endanger their health.  I had to make due with interior locations,  and sadly, the convention center was not as visually interesting as its surroundings.


I commuted to A-Kon from where I was staying in South Dallas, so I didn’t have a hotel room and had to carry all my gear with me, including about 15 pounds of lighting gear plus food and water.  I used a rolling suitcase with holes cut in the top because the lightstands are longer than the suitcase, even when fully retracted.  I discovered that I could extend one lightstand without removing it from the suitcase, using hte suitcase to steady the flash instead of the lightstand’s legs.  This let me drag around an external flash and take Strobist shots of passing cosplayers.  The white umbrella seven feet in the air also made me recognizable from a great distance.


On Friday I had five photoshoots scheduled, although only four actually happened. I had to hustle all day, moving from photoshoot to photoshoot, refilling my water bottle, and fighting the escalators. One of A-Kon’s idiosyncrasies is that the escalators work less and less as the con goes on. There are six main escalators that move people between floors in the con center.  By the end of the weekend, none of them are working, and people have to walk up and down steep metal stairs. This happens every year. I’m not sure if it is a recurring systemic failure or a deliberate inconvenience. Both possibilities are similarly incomprehensible. On Saturday I had more time to take photos of passersby and hang out with my Canadian and Oregonian friends who had inexplicably met me at the other end of the continent.


Sunday was a slow day, which was a nice change after a busy weekend.  I had to time to sit down and appreciate things that happened, as opposed to how things looked.  Instead of trying to get photos of as many cosplayers as possible, I would watch and appreciate someone contact juggling, a group of kids trying to synchronize their dance moves to the music of a boombox, and other entertaining activities that don’t make for good photographs.  One masked man stood still in the middle of the lobby, and would only move when bysteanders performed certain actions near him.  Figuring out his triggers, watching him react, and watching people react to him was fun.

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60 in 60: Sabrina

May 25th, 2010

Usually, nothing good comes from an argument on the Internet. This particular argument spawned a fun photoshoot, and I didn’t wasn’t even involved.  That is, I was not involved with the argument.  I was very involved in the photoshoot.  Perhaps I should explain.  Two people on a photography forum (which forum does not matter) had a disagreement about the number of photographs that resulted from a one-hour photoshoot.  The difference between the number of photos taken and the number of photos delivered was probably the cause of the misunderstanding, but the combatants were not concerned with explanations, only victory!  One finally exclaimed, “Good luck taking 60 good photos in 60 minutes”, or words to that effect.  I thought “Thanks, I’ll do that.”

To keep myself honest, I set a timer.  I started as soon as we reached our location.  Setting up lights, thinking up poses, and giving direction all counted against my time.  The camera loves Sabrina and I had a big list of ideas on hand, so I thought we had a good chance of reaching 60 shots.

The first few minutes were spent setting up my lightstands, then I started going through my printed list of poses.  Towards the end of the photoshoot, when both Sabrina and I had warmed up, we were more spontaneous and productive.  I have noticed this trend in previous photoshoots as well.  The rate at which I take good photographs accelerates as the photoshoot goes on.


At the end of the hour, I had about 260 photographs.  After culling and processing, I posted 37 images.  I might have reached 60 if my standards were a bit lower, or if I allowed a bit more repetition, but 37 is still much higher than my usual tally.  Some of the photographs that just missed the cutoff could have worked if I had spent more time to make them work, but I specifically challenged myself to work quickly.   After such a rushed photoshoot, I am tempted to go to the opposite extreme and set up a very detailed shot and iterate it meticulously to be as fantastic as possible.

See all 37 photographs.  (Flash slideshow) (HTML gallery)

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