Awesome story Igor. Cheers,
Gonz On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 9:24 PM, Igor PDML-StR <pdml...@komkon.org> wrote: > > Nice story! > I can feel how fulfilling it was for the photographer to hear that reaction. > Personally, I consider doing that type of photo job as a big challenge. > > > The story brought up from the memory the situation I experienced several > years ago: > As many people here probably know, I've been photographing dancers for many > years. Occasionally, I had people asking me not to photograph them. > In most such cases, you wouldn't see any "obvious" concerns about how they > looked (you know, the usual social stereotypes of bad looks: 6 arms, 40 > legs, 7 eyes, bad hair, ... ). But I respect those requests. And they are > usually done in a very polite way. > > > Once, at a relatively small outdoors dance party, about 8 years ago, > I had a very unusual situation. > I was taking photographs of the dancers (being just outside the perimeter of > the dance floor). At some point two dancers were dancing together, and that > couple that was both dancing well, and looking well (and being quite > "photogenic" even outside of the dance floor). > So, during the song sequence that they danced together, I was photographing > them a bit more than others. Very suddenly in the middle of > a song (which is a rather rare case altogether in the social dance culture > and especially in the dance community in question), the women stopped > dancing, turned to me, and asked to stop photographing in a rather strong > voice. And then she went back and resumed dancing. I was surprised by such a > reaction, but honored that request. I saw that a few other dancers were also > puzzled by such an abrupt reaction. (It was one of the "home" dance > communities for us, - so quite a few dancers in that community knew me.) > > > A week later, I posted the gallery of photos from that dance party online, > to my photography web site. While preparing it, I was debating with myself > if I should include the photos of that dancer (and especially with that > partner) that I had taken prior to the request. > I was still feeling very puzzled if not shocked by the somewhat rude way of > expressing that preference. Besides, the request was not about not using the > photos but not taking them anymore, and it came close to the end of the > dance party, not in the beginning. After long internal deliberations, I > decided to include those photos. > > Soon after, I received a surprising e-mail from that dancer, apologizing > for her reaction, and asking how she can buy multiple prints for 4 photos. > At some point, she was even considering an enlargement of one photo (to a > large size, above 8"x12", IIRC). > > She wrote: > "It's ironic because I'm the one who snapped at you for taking my picture. > Sorry about that. Typically I absolutely hate having my picture taken. But > I had no idea these would turn out so beautiful- esp. the black and white > one." > > (In my personal opinion, the photos were not special, - just my usual photos > from dance events, except for the black-and-white, which > was indeed a very interesting and rather unusual one.) > > > And then, in person, at the next dance party in that community, we > chatted, and she said: "In the future, please feel free to take photos of me > dancing." > It was very pleasant to hear that despite the initial strong negative > reaction, that woman enjoyed my photos of her. > > > Cheers, > > Igor > > Gonz Tue, 10 Apr 2018 10:38:33 -0700 wrote: > > Nice positive article, a nice break from so much "Instagram" stuff.. > > > https://petapixel.com/2018/04/10/a-message-to-portrait-photographers/ > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- -- Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. Dorothea Lange -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
