It's a saddening thing when the basics of portraits is basically gone. When in studio, what we would have thought of it high f- stops so that we acheive sharpness. The image I've put up is simple lighting, thus achieving a very shallow depth of field between the face and the ear. The image is so simple that it made me reflect on my earlier days of photography where I was 'capable' of spending the time to calculate the exact depth I needed, the time spent on producing one good image. This lady in the pic is a paramedic and I guess I've done my part on portraying grace within an empty body.
Nothing to dramatic or fanciful lighting, even nothing much to explain the motor of it, but have spent enough time on getting the grace out of her. If you think smile is all I need, well, think again on how to make her click and feel how the image would be the same way I do. I wanted her to remeber the times people were thankful and so grateful to her when she rescued a tragedy. I told her to focus on the smile when the relatives of that rescued person said 'Thank you', and how she played it down with a simple 'It's my job' and walked off with a gracious, yet benevolent smile. That smile, together with a strong copy makes the ad strong.
I thought of it as basics, but important, after all. It is the mood of the image that is important. As photographer, we're deprived of moving motions to relay a story. No 24 frames a sec to do with. To make it even more excruciating, we have only one frame. To those who have gone shooting, went home trying to find a nice pic, but then having to put up with something that's like 'can do'. I think we just have not gone close enough to feel what pictures have convey. Simply did not bother about having pictures that would touch the heart of others.
Going into the digital era has not change one single bit about shooting this form of portraiture. If we can't even relay extensive communications, let's not talk about posing people because that's gonna be irrelevant. Let's not even say 'I do people photography' for crying out loud.
For much about it, it's a shame having our technical aspect so soundly armed when we can't deal with communications, and worst off is to be shooting people so unknowingly.
