Inconnu

My Inconnu for the week. Pretty happy with this one. I was walking down the street anxious to get home and break into a freshly bought pastry when this man stopped me and asked me if I had any extra cash so he could get something to eat. I've seen him around town a lot. I proposed a trade - some cash for a portrait.
He was happy to oblige but said he wasn't sure he photographed well anymore - he's 72. I had him fooled for about a minute before the "You're not French?" question made its appearance. When I told him I was American he said "America shouldn't bother with the was in Afganastan - The Russians have been there trying for as long as I can remember and it hasn't gotten them anywhere."
I just smiled....

On a camera note: I have been reading my manual for the D90 (first time ever for anything) because I wasn't getting the effects (effects? Franny? I can never remember if its a or e) that I wanted. I changed my metering system (matrix to spot) and a whole slew of other things that determine the way colors and contrast are captured and recorded and I think that has helped a lot. Before - with the matrix - the camera was metering off a grid of 13 points and then suggesting the best exposure so that the most things possible would be exposed correctly - and well frankly that's not what I wanted. When I'm taking portraits like this I couldn't give a fig if the background is correctly exposed - its the person I'm concerned with. I find it less distracting and more aesthetically pleasing to have a blown out background like this actually. What do you think? Not for every situation of course - but for busy cities with trashcans and people walking by it seems better to not have all that exposed correctly and detracting from the subject.
Whats sooo nice about the D90 is that all the functions that I changed can be accessed on the body (also in menus of course) so I can easily press a button, spin a dial, and change things back based on the situation. Loving this camera more and more as I get to know it better. Ok enough camera gush - look for more inconnu portraits next week!

Thanksgiving in Limoges

This Saturday 20 some of us assistants and friends gathered for a Thanksgiving feast. Alex, Callum and Ansleigh really pulled out all the stops and we ended up having way more food than we could even eat and it was all amazing.







They started cooking the day before - making pumpkin pies from scratch (whole pumpkins I tell you!) and getting up early to go to the market downtown.



Some of the stuff they made like these little guys were so cute. I didnt try one because of the mallow on top but I think they were clementines that were hollowed out and then filled with sweet potatoes and topped with cinnamon and marshmallows? In any case they were super cute!



This was a goat cheese app covered in tomatoes and capers. Really nice.



The cranberry sauce was amazing. Im going to beg Alex for the recipe and hopefully she wont mind if I share it with you all too!



That plate of brown stuff behind the green beans was Guillaume's home-made seitan! It was so nice to have him there - he cooked some great little veggie dishes for us to split and we talked about vegetarianism/veganism. He sure knows his stuff - he even switched to English for a bit because the vocab was out of my league in French and I was super impressed with his English vocb. Obviously very passionate about being vegan.



They made 4 little chickens which I heard turned out quite well.



I'm pretty sure Callum was on "cut things up" duty all day long.



Our cooks!

What's cool about this place (Ansleigh, Anais and Jon live here) is that its an old hospital - or the old infirmary for the school that's across the street I think. So there are all these examination rooms that are just not being used! Kinda creepy but also kinda cool - I want to buy a wide-angle lens and go to town on that place. Would love to shoot a video there.



There is still all kinds of stuff like this laying around in the rooms they don't use.



Old waiting room type furniture.

Also I got a few portraits real quick when I could get someone to sit still long enough.


Jon from England.


This is my inconnu for the week. Didn't know her before so it counts!


Anais (pronounced Anne-I-eese)



Alex was gracious enough to pause in her frantic cooking for this one :)

Turned out to be a smash success I would say. We started at 2pm and we all hung out until almost 9pm. Then we headed over to Adam's place for a house-warming party that went well into the next morning. So nice to have friends! Plenty to be thankful for here!

Inconnus - Week 3

Went to a Beaujolais festival in Villefranche this weekend. Beautiful little town and a good opportunity to take a few stranger pictures.


This guy had just run the Beaujolais marathon - we saw lots of signs for marathons...drinking and running? Anyhow - at the finish line everyone got a sparkly cape (?), a medal of sorts, a bottle of water, and a bottle of the new wine. Good job!


One of the booth-workers for the wine tasting tables.


One of the performers - there were like 5 different musical groups all playing up and down the street.

Inconnus - Post 2

I was feeling restless one night - not ready to resign myself to just reading for the next few hours before bed - so I packed up my tripod and camera and went out into the night. It was one of the coldest nights I have spent in France yet. With their collars pulled high and their heads tucked down, eyes on the pavement, my possible portrait subjects glided by in the night before I could even work up the courage to open my mouth.

I stopped in front of Le Trianon to take a short video of the flickering neon above the door. A man came out to see his friends off into the night and spotted me, crouched next to my tripod - intently watching the dancing light on the screen of my camera. He asked what I was doing and without really explaining the video I launched into the "can I take a picture of you speech" that I had been rehearsing in my head since well before the first stranger I approached. He obliged.

Not to toot my own horn, but I'm really quite pleased with this one. The lighting was just how I like it and he gave me exactly the kind of expression I was looking for.

Yesterday was lovely - jacket weather again. I walked down by la Vienne for a few hours and asked a few more strangers for portraits.



I liked this guy because he told me I didn't sound like the normal American. Or rather..he said I didn't sound like a duck - and then proceeded to quack loudly. We must seems so charming to the French - haha.





Stay tuned for next weeks Inconnus post!

Des Inconnus - the start of a photography project

For months I have been marveling at Benoit P's Stranger series on flickr. He approaches strangers and even goes door to door making beautiful portraits. I'm timid by nature so I found myself even more impressed by his courage than by the photos he takes (though of course I wouldn't be so impressed if he took crappy portraits).
I have been talking about starting a Strangers project for a while now but every time I see a stranger I really want to photograph I can't get up the nerve. Like a teenage boy who desperately wants to ask a girl to dance but can't stand the thought of rejection I just walk by, throwing longing glances back over my shoulder until I can't see the person anymore - then kicking myself for not just going for it.
Well I finally just went for it. I set myself the task of getting one portrait per week (at least) and yesterday I decided to start.



I was walking down to the river when I spotted these two ladies while I was crossing the street. I framed the photograph in my head immediately and again gazed longingly as I continued to walk down the street. And then I stopped. I turned around and marched back up the street and walked right up to the ladies and in my best of best French I asked if I could photograph them. Tripping over my words, rushing to explain myself before they could say no. Oh no, it's not for a newspaper it's just for me. I just want to practice portraits. I'm timid and I'm trying to overcome my fear of talking to strangers.

The woman on the right, after verifying that her picture would not end up in some newspaper seemed more than willing to let me take the photograph. Her friend shied away but didn't exit the frame.

It was really the woman on the right that drew me to want to take the photograph in the first place. She reminded me of a cat. Her eyes are perpetually half closed it seems - like a bored feline, and her irises seemed so large that I don't recall seeing he whites of her eyes.

I snapped three quick pictures. She asked where I was from. She could tell I wasn't from around Limoges but she couldn't place my accent. I thanked the ladies and hurried down the street - exhilarated from my first attempt and crossing my fingers that the pictures were what I wanted them to be.

I walked down to the river and over the bridge - doing some exploring that I have been putting off. I stopped to film some ducks for a video I'm working on and a man came up behind me and pointed further down the path and said that the fisherman down there wanted me to take his picture. I agreed and the man yelled happily down to the fisherman to let him know I was coming.

It gave me a strange feeling on being back in grade school - when you get your friends to give "messages" for you to someone you are too nervous to talk to and once your friend gets an answer they tyrn yell back to you and totally blow your coolness cover by making you acknowledge that you asked for the message to be passed.



I walked down to where the man was fishing and set up my tripod. He cast his line and then patiently waited for me to focus the lens and take several shots. I asked him if there were big fish to be had in the river and he assured me that there were. He explained his method of catching small fish from the river and then using them as bait to catch larger fish.

I loitered around for maybe 5 minutes - hoping to see him catch something - but more just reveling in the fact that I could understand what he said and that this stranger was letting me partake without us having to go through the sometimes tiresome formality of exchanging names and nationalities.

I thanked him heartily and he thanked me in return - and I continued my adventure. I really have put off exploring by the river for far too long.

Expect one post a week dedicated to the stranger project from now on (i hope i hope!)