Face to Face: Part 1
Summer Portrait, Peaks Island, Maine
“Excuse me, but would you mind if I took your portrait?”
The sun was setting behind the Portland skyline, bathing the western shore of Peaks Island, Maine in sublime light. The three young women were enjoying the cool air finally moving in off the water. One of the women had bright yellow hair. Not the kind of yellow that you see on a lemon or school bus or a sun flower, but vibrant and glowing like a neon yellow highlighter in the mellow sunlight. That’s what first caught my attention.
“Sure!”
“You don’t have to pose or anything, just go about what you were doing like I wasn’t even here”, I smiled. I raised the light meter up to my eye as they relaxed back on the bench. “So do you all live here on the island, or are you here just for the day?”, I snapped the shutter with the soft click characteristic of the Rollei 2.8e. “We work right over there,” and one of the women gesticulated across the street. Ahh…getting in their post-shift ice cream after what was no doubt a busy day of tourists and day visitors who took the ferry ride from the crowded Old Port on the mainland.
“Well, thank you for letting me take a picture. If the photo turns out well, I’ll probably put it up on my Instagram if that’s ok. However, I am shooting film, so it will take a few days to get it developed and then scanned”. They asked for my account, and once I knew they had the right one, I thanked them again and made my way toward the approaching ferry and my return to the mainland.
The ferry landing is small, and only services the traffic between the city of Portland and Peaks Island. There are ferries that service the other islands: Cliff, Chebeague, Long, Diamond, and the further flung communities spread out like pebbles in the placid waters of Casco Bay. The summer population of Peaks swells to over 4,000 people in the summer, but once the winter winds and cool temperatures return from the Atlantic, the community contracts to just around 1200. The ferry itself can only carry a handful of cars at a time, so most people arrive on foot or bicycle. It is idyllic, and is nowhere short of charming.
Peaks Island Ferry Terminal, Portland, Maine
Taking portraits of strangers is something that I normally do not do. Not that anyone would know it from a casual interaction, but I am an introvert. I can almost hide it well. I come from a family of musicians and performers, my father being the most charismatic of us. My mother, though the quieter of the two, is no less engaging than the man with whom she has spent the last forty-six years of her life. At a young age there was the expectation as a kid of music educators and parents who were active in the music ministry of their local church…we perform. We play an instrument such as the oboe as I did, or violin or clarinet like my sisters. We dance (as was the case with my two younger sisters who were very, very good at it), we take voice lessons as I and the older of the three sisters did (and she is still so very, very good at it).
This makes it sound like I am resentful, which I am not at all. However, performing for me was loaded. While I love music (I miss playing the piano most of all), my time singing and acting through high school and college, or getting up in front of people has always been very uncomfortable. Even working as a tour guide in a cave, something that I love to the stygian depths of my soul, carried with it some anxiety and the necessity to decompress afterward, and be alone to recharge. Since there were few people my age in my small mountain town, as a young child I was much more content to be by myself exploring the pasture that surrounded my family home.
Perhaps this is why I gravitate toward landscape photography which is generally a solitary pursuit. Even if I am shooting in a city, I don’t intentionally engage with people and generally treat it as a different kind of landscape. But deep down, I am curious about the people that I pass by. Everyone has a story. Story is deeply rooted in our DNA, from the dawn of our species gesticulating over a fire after a hunt from which we again returned empty-handed, to strangers on the International Space Station endlessly falling into the Earth’s gravity-well. And, just like the International Space Station, my camera can be a vehicle to connect to people, especially my film cameras that people are not used to seeing any more.
Two years ago, I caught up with a friend in South Portland, Maine where I used to live. She had started crafting leather goods, and I commissioned a leather strap for my Rollei 3.5 M-V-X which I brought along for reference. After some beers and food, we went for a walk around my old South Portland neighborhood. We came upon an elderly couple warming themselves in the sun, wrapped in thick sweaters on a bench facing Casco Bay. The gentleman saw my camera, raised a beautifully gnarled finger, and commented that he hadn’t seen one like that in a very long time. He asked if I was still able to get film and if there will still places that developed film. It was an easy interaction that I felt led to a good opportunity to ask if I could take their photo. The interaction was brief, but without story. Perhaps the next time I would be more observant and engage in further conversation. Throughout my life I have been in a rush, and usually, much to my undoing, there’s one detail that I miss. If only I noticed his hat showing he was an Army Veteran I could have asked where he had served? And who was the woman sitting next to him?
Later the same month I took a walk in Portsmouth, New hampshire with the same trustworthy Rollei 3.5. I wanted to locate one of the oldest cemeteries in New Hampshire, and ran into two people outside of a shop. The woman remarked out loud, “I had a camera like that!” We got to talking, and she told me about how her mother lent her the camera for a high school photography class. She, somewhat embarrassed, said that she at one point dropped the camera and it was damaged and no longer worked. I told her it if the camera was still around that it was worth trying to find someone who could repair it, though it would be a bit of money. Once again, I got up the courage to ask for a portrait. The woman and her brother stood side by side, a nice and comfortable pose. My confidence in approaching strangers for a photograph went up just a little bit more.
However, I didn’t approach anyone else for a really long time for a photo, and when I wanted to, I felt unsure and a shied away. Introversion won again. I have learned that being able to ask for portraits is as much a skill as the ability to compose, read the lighting, and all of the other things that photographers must juggle regardless of being a digital or film photographer. It’s an intentional practice. And…taking portraits of people that do not know you or your intention can be a lesson in rejection.
Portrait of a couple on the South Portland, ME greenway
Portrait of a brother and sister in Portsmouth, N ew Hampshire.
One of my favorite YouTubers is Sean Tucker from the UK. His manner is very calm, reassuring, and soulful. Not in a proselytizing manner, but one that is often very human and intimate. Over time he shifted focus from tutorials and his own work, to discussions on larger subjects such as street photography, finding your own voice, becoming comfortable with one’s own failure, and approaching yourself and others thoughtfully and with intention. Often, he interviews other photographers. This is how I became aware of Gabrielle Motola, a fantastic US photographer and colorist who has been living in the UK. Her experience extends from interning with Annie Liebowitz, street portraits of people when traveling, to being the photographer for the singer Amanda Palmer on her solo tour. I instantly connected with her interview thanks to her frankness and easy going manner, and her honestly of her own apprehension she still sometimes feels.
A while ago I reached out to her in hopes that the next time she was State-side that I might be able to sign up for one of her workshops, and fortunately this October I was able to sign up for a workshop with her and several other photographers who are looking to hone their portrait skills in perhaps one of the best places to do it - New York City. I plan on a follow up blog about the experience of taking my first workshop ever, the value of working with others, and I hope to share some of that work in the new section of the website Facies Populi (Faces of the People), focusing specifically on portraits of strangers.