I hate post-processing. Frankly, I find it boring and hazardous. Boring as the tools you have at the glance of your hand offer so many options that you don’t know which ones are necessary and with which tool you should start. Hazardous because you can spend many long hours not even being able to decide […]
...I shoot people closely, I mean real close, only few centimeters from their face to my camera. But why I want to do it ? Why I shoot people so close ?
First my camera is a 28mm wide angle camera so I have no choice but to be real close if I really want to do some close-up portrait. But this doens’t explain why I want to do it with this gear and why so close. I could take their portrait from a longer distance and give more environment to my pictures. But I don’t. I just do it when I am using my film cameras. A Pentax K1000 with a 50mm lens and a medium format, a Pentax 67 with a lens at around 46mm (35mm lens equivalent) or a Rolleiflex.
I am not a guy that talk so much, I am kind of misanthrope usually, I don’t like very much the human kind. But when I shoot with my little Ricoh, I tend to forget everything, I am not me anymore, I start to be somebody else. And this new person is anger of interaction with people, although it is very difficult as still, a part of myself is so angry at mankind. And somehow I believe this belief takes form and I imagine that people can see or feel it. It may sounds strange but that’s the case. I have the feeling that people can see the truth inside of me.
So the fact to shoot them so closely is a real challenge to myself. For a moment I am pushing the boundaries, the upper limit to my state of mind and finally, in a way, take their souls with me. Yes taking their souls to feed mine, to satisfy myself. It is a kind of vampiric action but of course with no pain except for my shyness. Yes I think this is the main reason of me taking so close pictures of people, try stealing their souls !
It is challenging also from a photographic perspective, as you should avoid taking a picture that looks like a picture you have taken for an ID for exemple ; it forces me to try to be more creative, even I don’t succeed so much, the fact that I am only practicing is sufficient for my purpose as explained above.
Recently I have changed attitude towards this, as now I’m adding a flash to my photographic set-up. In the end I am not so close as I used to do like before but still quiet close. I think the result is even more radical. I have set-up my camera and my flash so all the background is black and only the people faces are appearing, I think it serves even better the original purpose. So I am kind of mixing two projects, Hello you ! and Flashup that you can see on the website. Maybe I should create another project called Flash you.
