I just noticed your hat. I mean, I'm obsessed with your hat.
Could I please get a photo of you to sat here?
Yeah. Do you mind if I take a
photo of you here? You definitely know, like, tearing people
up when your denim goes to your eyes.
So strong.
Yeah. Yeah.
This video is sponsored by Saul Digital. Some of the work that I admire
most involves photographers working with their subjects in the street, not just
candid photography. There's always been this feeling in my
gut that I want to make the move to ask someone for their photo.
It just has always been a curiosity of mine that I've been too scared
to pursue. We'll get a JP behind the scenes
bit. Of course, there's always this self
consciousness in my head of, you can't call this street photography because it's
not candid. And I definitely wouldn't want to
encourage anyone watching this video to pigeonhole themselves in terms of black
and white definitions of what is and isn't street photography.
And asking for permission to take someone's portrait is totally allowed.
Before I could muster the courage to ever ask a stranger for their photo
on the street, at risk of looking like an idiot or just being rejected,
I thought I'd start small. Asking someone for a photo for next
to no reason just feels strange because it is kind of strange.
So I had to find a reason to start.
So the first reason I came up with was, can I take a photo
of your dog?
Sorry to bother you. I'm taking photos of dogs in town
today. Hi, excuse me.
If I get a photo of your.
Dog or just dogs in town, do.
My photo, get a quick photo? Hi, excuse me, sorry to bother you.
Is my voice always that high pitched? I don't think it is.
I'm missing a few photos of dogs in town today.
I want to play you get a quick little photo.
Is that right? Love it.
Thank you. I love a jacket.
Not the best positive, to be honest. What's his name?
Vincent. Vincent.
Hello, Vincent. Gorgeous.
Love it. Thanks very much.
Have a lovely day. See you later.
Perfect denim.
I got asked by another YouTuber from the UK to be part of a
street photography series, and he followed me around for the day in Manchester
while I shot a full role of Elford HP Five on my Minalta shooting
dogs. And looking back at most of these
photos, not only am I quite happy with a handful of them, but for
each and every single one, I remember the connection with the dog's owners that
I made, and also they kind of resemble I got over my fear in
this photo and this photo and this photo.
It's like just a bunch of evidence of the fact that if you get
over that fear, there's something good on the other side.
And of all those dogs, I only had one owner of a Samued turn
me down. And it's because the Samayed turned out
to be a model with a bank account.
And if I wanted a photo, it was going to be kind of a
cash exchange. But regardless of this, this photo project
got off to a great start and I've even turned it into something
already. I needed a proof of concept to
be able to show my potential subject. If I approach a subject with this
book, I can show them examples of other photos I've taken, pretty much in
the same location we're currently in, and be able to show them this is
what I'm working on. I'd love to take some other kinds
of photos if you have time. Oh, yeah, this is well nice.
Where do you get your photo book from?
Oh, I'm glad you like it. I got it from Style Digital.
They offer a wide range of professional photography products that you can design
and print using their unique software. Yeah, you know, it's proper good quality.
Is it kind of like a one size fits all sort of deal?
No, not at all. Every product is fully customizable, so
that's the photographic paper, the layout of your pages, how many pages you
want in a photo book, the front and back cover, whether or not the
paper is glossy or matte, and even gift boxes.
Oh, yeah. Here you go, Winston.
Have a look at that.
And not just photo books. They also offer wall art, fine art,
prints and anything you need for professional photography services.
Oh, look, my dog. Proper loves your book, don't he?
Don't you, Winston? You love that, don't you?
Where can I get my own from? To get your own, you can just
follow this link in the description to order your first photography product with
Sold Digital. Do you mind if I get my
book back from your dog? Now that I'm fluent in asking dogs
for photos, I can translate those barks into questions for humans to take human
photos. But how hard could it be?
Hard? The answer is hard.
Next up, London. London has a lot more people than
Manchester. Here are the populations, which means
there's more chance for me to be both rejected and also accepted when
asking for photos. But when a city is more densely
populated, like London or New York, then you have less to worry about in
terms of people really noticing you or caring about you, compared to if you're
shooting in a very small town where news travels fast.
News travels fast.
I know that if someone rejects me and something doesn't go well, I'm likely
never going to see them again in my life.
Hey, you're right? Good.
I was just wondering, I'm taking a few photos of people in town today.
Day. Can I take your photo here?
Is that right? Yeah.
I can send it to you on Instagram or something.
What were you are you about to sit and chill.
All right, cool. Well, I feel it's.
All right, I'll get one of you stood up and then if you want
to sit down, I'll get another one just by your chilling.
Yeah, man, that's cool. 1 second.
Let me cheque that in a while.
Lovely. Thanks, man.
Yeah, you start chilling, then I'll just get another quick photo of yourself.
I'll send it to you.
Thanks for my fear had me believing that every interaction I went into would
be a case of people asking me questions like, Why do you want my
photo? Or what is it for?
Actually, come to think of it, I only really had one person ask
specifically, what was it for?
No, two of you. I love your style, Mile, but I.
Love you talking stuff.
Thank you. That's fine.
What are you going to use it for?
I can send it to you. I'm just sort of practising taking photos
people in the street, but I can send it to you guys on Instagram
if you want as well. Individual ones, though?
Yeah? No, I don't want an individual one.
The pair of you together would be beautiful.
Yeah.
And I definitely could have done a better job of making them more comfortable
and winning them over. It's these skills that I think are
what I'd like to dive into more in the future as well, because these
aren't framing, these aren't exposure, these aren't focus.
This is much more about the interpersonal skills that make a photo work that
I think we don't talk about that much because it's difficult to explain and
show, but I want to make an effort with that.
Hi, Steve. Hi, how are you?
Good, thank you. I'm good, thank you.
Yeah, I'm just wondering I just noticed she's on the phone.
I wonder if I could take a photo of you guys.
So I'm a photographer, but I'm normally in Manchester, I'm down in London, so.
I'm just taking portraits of people while I'm down here.
Yeah, you can finish your phone call, don't worry.
That's all right. Sure.
Do you mind? Hop along here?
Cool. Yeah.
Just looking over there, man.
That's cool. You'll notice from all of these shots
I'm showing you that I'm shooting quite wide at 28 millimetres.
This is very intentional because I didn't want to rely on something like a
50 mil or even longer to hide any of the environment.
When I'm shooting a subject, I'd like the pressure of having to get up
close to make the subject fill the frame while also allowing room for the
environment and space to be included in the shots.
And this is because a lot of the photos I like from street
photographers from decades ago, or portraits I've seen on the street from
many years ago when they're shot at 35 millimetre or 28 millimetre, including
a lot of the surrounding area, really helps encapsulate the time period the
photo was taken in. So I'm hoping by doing this in
the future, I'm going to look back and be happy I didn't just result
to using background blur and instead incorporated the environment.
I like this gentleman's Jurassic Park hat.
How are you? Good, thank you.
Good. I just noticed your hat.
I'm obsessed with your hat. Could I please get a photo of
you two sat here? Is that right?
I saw it from behind. I said to my mate, I was
like, I love this Jurassic Park. Are you guys just visiting today or
do you live down here? Yeah, I live around here.
Oh, nice. One moment.
I'm actually from Manchester, but I've lived down here before, but down here
today and I'm taking a few more photos of people.
London's always good scenes, man. It's great.
Yeah, it's lovely. Lovely.
Great. Awesome.
Thanks very much. Darren, you do 35 millimetres?
Yeah, this is all 35. It's a good range for like, portraits.
Yeah. So this one's actually a 28, so
it's even wider. But for street stuff, it's really nice.
You get a nice amount of environment in and people
lovely. Nice one, guys.
Take care. See you.
The easiest part of these interactions is focusing, checking the cameras turned on
and pressing the shutter. That is the easy bit.
The hardest part of these interactions is making eye contact, going up, approaching
someone and starting an interaction. Because in that first moment you see
people either being kind of dismissive of you or being open to you and
it's a little bit difficult. And even the people who are maybe
a bit dismissive, you have to just carry on with the same pitch.
But it's the solo men that really surprised me.
Like, compared to what I imagined they might be, in reality, they were completely
different. There was definitely a difference between
those who were clearly fashion conscious and chose what they were wearing that
day with intent and they kind of knew they looked good.
Excuse me, mate. How are you?
I'm good, thank you. Yeah, I was just wondering if I
could take a photo of you here.
You look awesome, man.
I love a denim. If you want to be how you
kind of were just like sort of leaning off, like just chilling.
Yeah. Yeah, dude, just like yeah, look.
Looking at me, actually. Lovely.
Thanks, man. Do you mind if I do one
more as well? Yeah, sweet.
Yeah, sweet. Cheers, man.
When your denim goes to your eyes so strong.
Yeah, that's the strap. Yeah, yeah.
How are you? Are you busy?
Are you in a rush? I was wondering if I could take
your photo. I love your glasses.
I love your whole outfit. If you're sort of like here, just
looking back that way. Yeah.
No, if you're you're facing me, but I'll be looking.
Yeah. Cool.
Thank you. So I didn't mean to interrupt you.
If you're walking along. Lovely.
Do you want me to send you a camera?
Yeah, thank you. Luckily, it's still working.
Most of these guys were extremely open to having the photo taken and they
were very positive with the whole process. But it's one of the things I
always sort of thought solo men might be less inclined to take a photo
versus women, but actually so far I've found self consciousness is not where I
first expected it to be. So I was really pleasantly surprised when
a couple of these fellow guys had not only positive reactions, but also said
super kind words to me in the process.
Hi, excuse me, mate. How are you doing?
Good, I'm good, man. Yeah.
Do you mind if I take a photo of you here?
Yeah. You look cool, man.
You want to leave? Yeah, sure, man.
Really love you. You just of course, man, cheering people
up. Yeah.
Nice, man. You too.
See you later. Take care.
He said afterwards, he was like, oh, honestly, you've just made my day.
He asked me, Are you just going around cheering people up today?
And I was like, oh, I didn't expect to have that reaction.
I thought everyone was going to be suspicious or something like that.
And it just made me feel kind of stupid that I thought so negatively
of all these interactions and they turned out to be so overwhelmingly positive.
Not only were people kind and willing to take a photo and positive with
the interactions, but actually when we left the interactions, people left in a
better mood than the mood they were in when I first approached them.
It seemed to actually make a lot of people's days go a lot better.
And this was a big relief for me because I think I've been very
much stuck inside my head when I'm out taking photos on my own.
So it was really nice to actually feel like I'm having a relationship with
the people whose photos I want to take.
A big benefit of having myself filmed while doing this process is that now
I can look back and see myself in the third person alongside the images
that I took to be able to see, look, this is what happens when
you get over that fear. That fear was only temporary.
Once you get over that, ask someone for a photo.
You create a moment with them that you can give to them, and you
make a connection and just be able to see evidence of that means that
if I ever get into kind of a low energy period of time, I
can look back at that and go, okay, but I can do this.
I've seen myself do it. I can point at myself and watch
myself doing it and go, okay, let's go do it again.
And if this video has connected with you in any way, if you have
this sort of fear around taking photos of people, please drop comments down below
with questions or your experiences and let us know your thoughts on taking photos
with strangers. And if you have any sort of
concerns about your photos not not really standing out right now and you wonder
if there's any point in holding onto them, go cheque out this video here
all about how photos from today versus photos from the past and how your
photos might mature with age.