The Portrait Photographer | Personnel Connection

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | The Photographer in Action | Sungai Gabai | Selangor

It was very easy for anyone to say that they too can take great portrait like National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry get if they were at the same place where Steve took the photographed. They think that they too can get a great Portrait of Afghan Girl just like what Steve captured if they were there too. Yes, it was easier to said than done, the truth is taking picture of a human is difficult. If you have read about the Sharbat Gula, the iconic Afghan girl that grace the National Geographic Magazine cover in June 1985 issue, you will know that it is not as easy as point and shoot.

Steve use psychology to get the girl attention. The portrait were taken at refugee camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in a large tent that served as a girls school. He photographed almost all of the student inside the tent, not just the Afghan Girl even though the Afghan Girl is his main attraction. Why? Simply because he doesn’t want to frighten the girl by simply pick her alone and leave her other friend in the tent. Steve wants to make Sharbat Gula comfortable. He wants to make her feels at ease with herself knowing that her other friends also have been photographed.

My point is, portrait photography is more about personnel connection, more about human touch than our photography skills, we may have state of the art camera equipment but if we do not know how to communicate well with our subject, don’t know how to win their heart, all those shiny camera gear will never be able to produce a great portrait picture. We must be a human first and a photographer second, we must be a friend first before we take their photograph. We just cannot simply point our camera at them without even say hi and just take their picture, I’m not talking about candid photography here but a formal portrait where the subject know that they being photographed.

About the picture above, where a friend of mine photographing that little kids at a small wooden house in Gabai Selangor, we spent almost an hour speaking to the mother before we dare to ask a permission to photograph his children. When we arrived here, the child were sitting at the far end of the house which is quite dark to photograph without the aid of flash. So we spend most of our time speaking to the mother about his children, about his life and also about the village and slowly we ask the mother whether we could photograph her children and also politely asking the child to come closer to the door where we can get a better lighting and better look of them together. At first they were shy but after we make friends with them, talk to them even though they never talk back to us, they felt comfortable, and act natural in front of the camera.

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Portrait Photography | Sungai Gabai | Hulu Langat Selangor

We spent a few hours  in the village but take less photographs. We want to make our presence felt here, we want to make the people living here accustomed with us, feel at ease with us and hopefully when they are familiar with us, they don’t bother about us anymore and we can freely taking picture without feel like a total stranger. It was just two of us here. I don’t like shooting portrait photography with a large group of a photographer. It is very difficult to make a personnel connection with the subject if there are too many people taking the picture here and there and I do believe if there are too many photographers, some of them will never speaks to the subject, instead they are busy taking pictures and let their other friendly friends do the talking with the subject being photographed.

We should treat a human as a human, not as a subject even though I use word “subject” here as to point that they are our “photography subject” but be remembered that they are not a subject like a building or a tree, they are human just like us, have feelings. Treat them well and you will be rewarded with a great portrait at the end of the day, and at the same time have a new friends.

We did give them some cookies before we leave, I don’t consider it as a “bribe” but more as a souvenir from us coming from the city. They don’t even ask for anything before we took a picture of them, they don’t even know that they will be given a cookies at the end of the photography session because we leave the cookies in the car somewhere not too far from the village. We don’t offer them anything in the very first place before we took their photograph but before we head over here, we think it is a great idea to bring something for them, especially for the children to cheer them up, make them happy.

Portrait photography is more than just our ability to operate a camera, it is more than just to know some basic stuff about photography, more than just about composition, lighting or rules of third but most importantly, portrait photography is about human connection, about personnel connection and about personnel touch. It’s about being human because we are dealing with a human just like us, have feelings and need to be respected in order for us to gain their respect.

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