It was hard to walk the halls with my camera and force myself to take pictures. The greatest challenge for me was that as a professional photographer, I'm used to having complete control over my subjects and environment. Here I didn't. I was asking people to spare a moment of their time to allow me to photograph them. They were not getting an image. They didn't even know me and who knows what I would be doing with their likeness. It was an exercise in trust on their part. I interrupted conversations and smokes, made them almost miss busses, and generally inconvenienced them for my own purposes. Because I was aware of that (and have been trained to never be a problem to anyone almost to a fault), I wanted to be as fast as possible. That meant that I had things in the background that I felt were skewing the image. I was not always able to control my lighting or the crowds milling around me. I didn't spend more than a few seconds with my subjects so I didn't dictate the pose. I was merely the documenter of the experience.
I found this exercise rather frustrating from a skill standpoint. I could hear all my old teachers screaming, bad lighting, bad pose, background too busy, too much noise, etc. I published the images on Facebook with fear and trepidation that I'd be seen as a bad portrait photographer... that I should know better. But this exercise wasn't about that. This was about breaking the rules and overcoming shyness. It was about being comfortable with the uncontrollable. It's not that I haven't made a million snapshots like this before. I've photographed weddings and social functions. This didn't feel any different. It felt like I was doing a service to the people and wanted to make the images available to them to celebrate their creativity in costuming.
Here's what I learned from this. One, people are pretty cool. Some are more open than others to being photographed but they all said yes. Two, as I work on these images I see a beauty in every person. This is the reason that I became a portrait photographer in the first place. I just love people! As I view these images, these people are becoming my friends. I feel gratitude toward them. Three, if I want to be serious about photographing these people, I'd like to single some out and spend a bit more time with them. Share who I am and let them share with me who they are.
The Wicked Faire initially was intimidating to me because I didn't know what it was about. I didn't know what the workshops were, or the performers or anything. I wasn't even sure what we were doing there aside from walking up to strangers and taking pictures. As the weekend went on I started getting more into it. I felt less like a fish out of water. I'm used to going to photography conferences where I know people and I know the trade. This was different.
At the end of the weekend I made a few friends, got a super cool outfit and decided that I want to delve deeper into this world. Who are the people? Why do they go here and spend all that money on costumes? What does it benefit them? I guess I enjoy a good psychological study or at least an archival situation. In two months there is a big Steampunk World's Fair. I'm signing my whole family up for the experience and looking forward to some new adventures
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