Spontaneous Impromtu Stealth Portraits

[venchka]

I did a quick search and found out that this topic has not been covered. So, let's see your stealth portraits.

Some background. A colleague and I went to a local Tex-Mex place for dinner after work one Sunday. I had the camera loaded with my first roll of BW400CN. After my friend had what I thought was enough adult beverages to loosen him up, I aimed the camera at him. He freaked and said, "No way are you taking my picture!" So I set the camera down with the self-timer cocked. I set it off. He didn't notice. So I did it again. He didn't notice. Grinning. Here are the results.

Lesson learned: Don't put the camera behind the basket of chips! 😀 Next time I will pick a better location for the camera. Bonus points if you can name the lens. Minimal postprocessing with Lightroom.

Critiques welcomed. Thanks for looking. Large files-high speed connections!

 

[James Burton]

...So I set the camera down with the self-timer cocked. ...
Thanks for looking.

Any chance you could reduce the size of the pictures to say 500 or 600 pixels
on the longest side? Should be about 100k. That way us dial-uppers can look 🙂


Nice idea with the self-timer, now how do you do that without endless futzing
and calling attention to what you're doing?

---
Who does stealth portraits 'round here?

 

[simonankor]

 

[JimG]

She was preoccupied with her phone call, so I snuck a shot.

 

[Dougg]

One of our town's strange characters. He's sitting on his bike (as usual) at the farmer's market. He rides this old single-speed balloon-tire bike all over town, and he rides incredibly slowly. Must take very good balance to go that slow. Often smoking a cigaret while riding too. He's a fan of the fire department, so shows up whenever and wherever they're doing something. This is very impromptu; I raised the camera and he's just beginning to react to that...

Ilford XP2 at EI 250.

 

[kully]

This is a vegetarian mate of mine:

He's looking at us trying to get the brains out of this hog:

 

[taffer]

Piazza Spagna, Rome.

 

[venchka]

Dial up friendly smaller files.

As for the self-timer, I just used my finger to cock it. When my friend wasn't looking I pressed the release.

The rest of you have practiced this a lot. Y'all are WAY better than I am. However, it would appear that you all actually had the camera up to your eye. 😱

 

[Todd.Hanz]

KKK rally demonstrators:

Todd

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

 

[JoeFriday]

did you mean stealth photo or stealth fighter? 😉

the street scene was a total stealth shot.. hyperfocus and guestimated exposure.. the camera was actually pressed against my hip and I was walking toward the women as I pressed the shutter.. the amazing thing is that I didn't have to adjust the level of the frame in PS.. what you see is exactly what the neg shows

 

[goo0h]

did you mean stealth photo or stealth fighter? 😉

LOL. Cute. 😉

the street scene was a total stealth shot.. hyperfocus and guestimated exposure.. the camera was actually pressed against my hip and I was walking toward the women as I pressed the shutter.. the amazing thing is that I didn't have to adjust the level of the frame in PS.. what you see is exactly what the neg shows

Actually, inspired by your earlier post of the gals walking towards you, I recently took some chest-level pics at a birthday party. I'm tall enough that a ceiling light over a bar was cutting into the top of the frame, so I lowered the camera. I then did a few more like that because I noticed it wasn't as distracting to folks. I haven't had a chance yet to develop the film so have no idea if any of them came out, but at least it was fun!

 

[Pherdinand]

Here you go.
Guess where it is.

 

[Pherdinand]

Joe Friday, she's not a stealth fighter but a bomber.

 

[venchka]

😉 Good eye, Brett!

All of this is very inspirational! Think I'll practice some more this weekend.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Guess where it is.

New Orleans?

 

[venchka]

Here you go.
Guess where it is.

Amsterdam would be too easy.:angel:

 

[Pherdinand]

well, venchka, life is sometimes simple and easy. Amsterdam it is.

 

[Pherdinand]

gabriel, indeed i made it difficult by hiding the bikes and, by the english-only-text.
And wow,there are no windmills wooden shoes tulips neither! 😀

 

[MinorTones]

A scan of an inkjet print cuz I can't find the original file at the moment.