I try to head over to the local Farmers’ Market every Saturday. There’s an array of stuff to be purchased and experienced, ranging from the expected bountiful local produce to all manner of handcrafted items.
I snapped a few quickly for some more digital experimentation the other day.
It turns out I have a buddy who minds the breakfast crowd at Garnett’s on Tuesdays. She and the owner told me I was welcome to come down one morning to play around. It was really quiet but the space is so amazingly photographic.
I got the staff (all 4 of them) to walk around. Well, all except one. The owner’s the one peeking over her newspaper there in the back.
“Scott,” they say, “Come to us!”
French fries, for me, are rather like the pancakes in this short story by Leszek Kolakowski.
“Pancakes with syrup tend to have vicious natures. Their behavior is at once cowardly and sly, and they have no understanding of deeper things. They often weep (and everyone knows that there is nothing worse than a weeping pancake), and as soon as you turn your back, they cackle maliciously. They also play many unexpected pranks that often ruffle one’s serenity…”
Shot with the gracious assistance of the kindly folks over at Brainchild Collective. We played with a bunch of other ideas on this day to include gumdrops and Jolly Ranchers® and coins but nothing really amazed me.
I’ve been looking at a number of photographers lately who have an incredible way with miniatures and I decided to come up with a technique and give the idea a shot.
These images are another set of sketches. I was thinking about the things we enjoy to excess that eventually lead to (or at least, can lead to) our deaths. Because it was off the cuff the “sins” aren’t so bad, but I’m largely happy with the results.
Pretty regularly I stare at people. Girls, boys, men, women, short, tall, fat, skinny, black, white, and everything in between interests me. I’m looking for things about them to photograph, in looking for beauty. The interesting thing is that while you’d think that the simply “beautiful people” would be my favorites – and don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to photograph folks who are easy on the eyes – but it’s the folks who are not traditionally attractive who are the greatest draw. Heck, aren’t there more of us than the beautiful people anyway?
The thing I haven’t quite nailed is the pitch. I know photographers who just walk up to people and (apparently) get say the right things to make those people comfortable enough to have their images made.
A buddy here in Richmond shoots (get this) nude male bottoms. She can just walk up to guys, produce a few 4x6s her purse, and voila, guys are there for her. I wonder if it’s because as a woman, she’s not threatening to the guys she photographs. Granted, I don’t wanna do anything that risqué, but I kinda feel like just sauntering up to people (especially women) and asking for a photo op is a little disquieting.
Bryan Miller is a friend up in Maryland and he says he manages that kind of thing all the time. Heck, he says that he manages to pull folks from MySpace. His portraits are almost haunting. His subjects and their connection to the viewer are amazing. It doesn’t hurt that he’s using a big ol’ honkin’ camera so they know he’s not kidding.
On a visit to see Rodney Smith (courtesy of Jim), I was told that even he sometimes wrangles people out of crowds. His images are both clever and staid and timeless all at the same time. He said a bunch of other stuff about the way his images get made during that visit, but this was one of the most profound.
I guess time and slowing working through the people I know are the only cures to the issue.
Hey, wanna be in pictures?
photographic ramblings of thomas scott 