Let’s continue talking about portrait… refer to part 1 if needed, but this piece can be read as stand-alone. It is mostly my attempt to make sense of my own processes.
Also, you have to forgive my english, I can convey only so much in a second language…
How does one improve in portrait photography? Where do we start? Let’s start from the beginning…
Imagine that you have to take a portrait of a stranger. You have your lights and camera set. A stranger sits in front of you. What do you do?
You start with an introduction.
Introduction into Portrait Session
No matter who your subject is — a friend, family member, a celebrity or a complete stranger, — they will feel much better if you introduce to them what you actually try achieve during your portrait session. …
baby steps…
I wonder if there is no way of cutting through a circle of violence…
my grandmother used to beat me and close me in a dark cupboard. (though it was in my memory vault till like early 30-s when I finally made myself face my past and made myself remember it).
In kindergarten, teachers used to beat me cause I was different; post-soviet education was a mess at those times. My mixed blood look added to confusion.
All this made me a violent kid, I beat the shit out of my kindergarten and school classmates up until 12–13 y.o. Never felt good about it and hated me for the inability to communicate with people my inner struggle with violence and loneliness. …
Am I in someones dream?
Tokyo moves closer and becomes intimate with me only through photography. Pictures I casually snap during my walks remind me of the beautiful, sad, and somewhat sensual relationship that I have with it. Of course, this relationship, like any of a kind, is complicated and changes with time, making snap photography all so more transient to me.
I am not a conventional street photographer in any way, and the time when I roamed the streets aimlessly to re-affirm my own presence and find things to express just for the sake of expressing myself are long gone now. …
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