When on a location photo shoot with cameras hanging off me like bad jewelry, the question I hear most often is:
“Whatcha doin?” or the variation “Takin’ pictures?”
When shooting portraits, of the myriad comments uttered by the shootee, my favorite and the one I hear most often is
“This is worse than going to the dentist.”
The answer to the “whatcha doin” question is generally easy to solve. I say “I am taking pictures.” This usually clears things up. However, the thing about the dentist is more difficult because we are now in the realm of self-perception and the answer is more challenging. Generally there are two kinds of people – those who enjoy being photoed and those who do not, with very little middle ground.
When I first started this business, a subject looked at her picture and said, “This is the worst picture I have ever seen.”
Since I took great pains with lighting and background, because I thought the shoot went really well and that she looked terrific, I was non–plussed to say the least. I soon came to learn is that she was really saying “I don’t like the way I look in this photograph.”
