As an aside, I should explain something about my photography approach in case I end up posting photos focused on people.
I'm used to photographing trains.
There's no way to pose a moving freight train exactly where you want it; it's more of a challenge of geography and timing and initiative. It's what I call the 'shoot what's really there' approach, with the resulting documentary atmosphere. No preparation, no touch-up, not even clearing the weeds, Lance. As soon as an interesting subject is found, I shoot as I find and move on. I also have a preoccupation with taking a good image, regardless of subject.
As a result, I suck at photographing people. I find myself trying to take the same approach as I do in railfan photography, and I top out at the level of candid photographs. I end up freezing their image as they are, rather than when they're ready to present themselves. There's not much preparation that twenty thousand tons of steel and cargo moving at fifty miles per hour can do to 'smile for the camera', in comparison. Taking photos in this manner could be off-putting for some people, I've since realized. It might be that my method presumes a familiarity with the people in the viewfinder that I may not really have, catching them in such casual (perhaps intimate?) moments.
It reminds one of the stories of African tribespeople who thought that a photo taken of them would steal part of their soul. Maybe there's something to that.
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