In the Chair
In the Chair
I've had several moments in which I didn't take a photo because I was too timid or thought it too inappropriate for me to take the shot. There was, however, a similar situation that I experienced once that you might find interesting.
Last year when I still had a Canon EOS 5D II, I convinced a young woman friend of mine to let me take her picture. I told her that I would set up my studio photography equipment at home one Saturday afternoon, if she would sit for me for an hour or so. She was a little reluctant about getting her picture taken in such an intentional way, but agreed since I assured her that she would like the results--and since she had such terrible photos of herself on her personal profiles on the web.
When she arrived, I had not yet finished setting all of the equipment. I had the background up, the lights assembled but not positioned correctly yet, and the camera on the tripod. I had more tweaking to do. Since I had a chair in front of the camera for her to sit on, she sat down to wait for me to finish preparing.
When she sat down, it was like an experienced patient plopping down onto her psychiatrist's couch. She launched immediately into a lengthy discourse about her life, her disappointments, her problems from childhood, and bad experiences in recent and old relationships with men. Her observations about her life and life in general were fascinating. She wasn't mentally disturbed or any such thing. She is just very self-aware and observant. I should have taken only fifteen minutes more to get ready to take her picture, but I stood there leaning on the camera and tripod listening to her talk for about an hour before I began taking the photo shoot. Her discourse required little or no interaction from me. I listened mostly--which is very strange for me since I'm a talker.
As I listened to her, I was so tempted to click on the video recorder of the camera. Her comments, coupled with her body language and facial expressions seemed to me worth preserving. They seemed valuable. I could have done it and she wouldn't have known. But it didn't seem right. After about twenty minutes I told her that I was tempted to record her comments. She said it was fine with her as long as it wasn't posted on the web. I said, "No. Some things are perhaps best left to memory alone and kept only to those present." She smiled slightly and then went resumed her comments about life. In the name of testing the lighting, I did snap off a few shots of her during this hour. Above is one of them.
