047/100 Lionel
Image by Lino Steenkamp
I took my sons to Ceres to go and do the longest zipline in Africa and while they were doing that I went out on the streets to find some strangers.
As I were walking down the main street Lionel came around a corner and nearly bumped into me. The minute I saw the hat, I knew I wanted him for the project.
I approached him and asked for his portrait to which he immediately agreed.
My first 46 strangers were an absolute pleasure and I loved every moment of it, I also had only two rejections in the whole period. This walk in Ceres were the absolute opposite to my previous experiences and I’m battling to understand why.
Only tree things changed for this walk:
1. The town: Could that make such a big difference, would a whole town be more suspicious than the previous 10 or more locations I visited.
2. Time of walk: I normally do my walks first thing in the morning where this were a mid day walk. Could that make a difference?
3. My approach: I normally don’t lead with the question if I could take someones portrait, I first engage the stranger in normal conversation and then ask for the portrait, where on this outing I approached all my subjects directly. I think this would have made the biggest difference, I’m however not sure that it would have this big an influence with about 75% of the people I asked refusing me today.
Also interesting to note the emotional effect today had on me. When I came home I told my wife like I felt I did not want to publish any of the strangers I got as I did not establish a proper rapport with any of them. So in short I felt the whole day were a failure. In the end I however decided to post Lionel’s picture because it were the most interesting of the day and it also gave me te opportunity to share my experience with you.
My 100 strangers blog Mafube’s 100 Strangers
my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
This South Africa image was automatically curated and published with WP Robot plugin – CLICK HERE to learn more about WP Robot for WordPress – a massive time and money saver.
Visit the MyPE YouTube Channel.
