Exercise 6:The Best of a Sequence

For this exercise I asked our neighbour Julie to sit for me in her own garden in order to ring the changes from our own. I explained what I hoped to achieve and suggested the seat next to their water feature as a suitable location. I placed the camera on the tripod and then engaged Julie in conversation, watching for her facial expressions and also her hand movements as she is very expressive when involved in conversation. I took pictures without using the viewfinder and tried to pick moments when she had pleasing and interesting expressions. I found that this was not easy. I also attempted to evaluate each image as I was taking it and jotted down notes at the end of the session - again not easy. I used two settings and when I felt that I had taken enough by the bubbler, we moved to the bench at the bottom of the garden where I also took some landscape format shots as well as the portrait ones. The contact sheets are shown below with the images numbered from left to right and top to bottom.

As I was taking pictures I thought that the initial ones were not so good as we were both settling down to the session. I thought that number 7 would be a good shot but, on looking at the contacts, I realised that I had just missed the moment. I thought that 9 and 10 would also be good but notice that I have missed Julie's hands on 9, but I do like 10. I thought that 15 would be a good shot but again not as good as I had thought. Another shot that I expected to be pleasing was 20, but again others that I had not expected are better.

For the last part of this session I zoomed out and felt that some of the shots here were going to be pleasing. I particularly liked the look of the ones where Julie glanced down towards the bubbler, despite not having eye contact. On examining the contacts I feel that 28 is the most satisfying.

In the second part of the session I thought that the ones on the bench would be good but decided to zoom in to try some closer ones as well. Again Julie used her hands a great deal.

After examining the contacts I judged them by the criteria a) not good, b) acceptable, c) good and d) the best single shot.

Those I found to be not good were: 3, 5, 8, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 29, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 51 and 52.

Those I found acceptable were: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 15, 24, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 46, 48 and 49.

The ones I really liked are: 6,10, 14, 17, 25, 27 and 50. I have included these as larger images below.

The shot that I preferred above all of the others is number 6 which is shown below.

I found this exercise interesting and challenging. I found it difficult to judge when a shot would be pleasing. As the session progressed I could tell when there was an interesting expression or hand position but capturing it was a different matter. I often missed 'the moment' and other images were the ones I preferred. I decided to draw the session to a close partly by judging when Julie had had enough and also when I felt that I had captured enough acceptable images. I have realised during this part of People and Place that individuals often find being photographed puts them slightly out of their comfort zone and this presents a challenge to the photographer. This exercise has also made me realise that, as with my nature photography especiall birds, that taking one image is not enough. We need a large selection to choose from. If only one portrait is taken, the chances are that the subject will be caught in an unpleasing pose or expression.