POLP Week 1: 31 Jan

andy's portrait

This little task had lots of the challenges of photographing people. You don't know them, so you are trying to talk to them, get to know them, probably relax them whilst at the same time think about the camera, the light, the exposure etc.

Here's a first shot of Andy, with the white balance all wrong:

 

We were in the canteen so that we could talk and relax, and Andy was an interesting person to talk with. I didn't want to stop listening and move about, so the portraits were very simple. I took a few like this:

But I wanted to get rid of the background. Andy talked about his experiences in the military and his travels: Kenya, Canada, and spoke of friends who had been to Afghanistan just as it came on the 6 o'clock news. This shot isn't perfect, and might not seem very flattering, but I hope it captures the seriousness of the conversation. I had the feeling that Andy was travelling around the world as we spoke.