This is great - I've tried an (easier) offshoot of this idea a while back and it resulted in a lot of personal growth.
I tasked myself with taking a portrait of a stranger every day. It was terrifying to start with, walking up to complete strangers and asking to take a picture of them, and it took me 1-2h each day before finding the picture. By the time I wrapped up the project I took that down to 30 min, and didn't even break a sweat. My rejection rate also went way, way down, and I was able to get much better pictures than the "man, this is awwwwwkward" images from the beginning of the project.
The one thing to note though, is that (at least for me) the effects of this kind of "therapy" aren't permanent. Once you take away the regular stimulus of putting yourself out there, you fall back into your normal steady state.
This may seem like a detail, but do you ask people "hey can I take a picture with you for this project I'm doing on getting pictures with other people", or do you just ask "hey can I take a picture with you"? Maybe you've tried both - does one work better over the other?
The former. This is also why I think my project was substantially easier than what's in the article - when you're doing the same thing everyday you get a lot of feedback as to what works and what doesn't.
There are also a lot of other cues that determine how likely someone is to say yes, and if so, how awkward they will be. After a while you learn to spot people who (due to typical Seattle politeness) will probably say yes, but be uncomfortable in doing so. I ended up avoiding them for the most part.
I think your project was also easier because of how you approached it, not just the fact that you did the same thing each day. When you say "hey can you take a picture with me for a project" you're giving people a reason for the request and they have this sort of understanding. They may still wonder what the project is and think it's weird but that small detail makes all the difference to me. Now if you were to approach people and say "Can I take a picture with you?" and leave it at that then I'm willing to bet the "no" rate would go up, it would be more challenging, and maybe the tolerance to rejection would be a bit better.
I don't want to sound like I'm knocking your method because I'm not and lord knows I'm in need of some serious rejection therapy too and haven't done anything close to what you did. I think that's a pretty cool project and I might try it except I won't tell people why I'm asking the question.
> "They may still wonder what the project is and think it's weird but that small detail makes all the difference to me."
It absolutely does. That said, the guy in the article could also very much say something like "I have a personal project where I make an outlandish request every day" and probably gotten more "yes"es.
It's all in the intent - I wasn't out there strictly to get rejected, I was out there to take some cool pictures for a project, and learn a few things about cold-approaching people and handling failure. It wasn't intended as rejection therapy, though it did seem like that in the beginning ;)
In a similar vein, I'm assuming you carried around an SLR with a nice lens, which lends a bit of credibility (it's a substantial barrier to entry). Personally I wouldn't think twice about letting myself be photographed by a guy with a D300 who said it was for a portfolio or a project.
You would think so, but not really. Most lay people can't differentiate between an entry-level DSLR (like the D5100 or a Rebel) and a pro DSLR like a D800 or 5D. What they do know is that just about anyone has a DSLR these days, so the mere act of having a DSLR lends generally little credibility.
The camera is capable of lending credibility though, you just have to step way outside of what people normally see on the streets. In my case the project was done with the Yashica Mat 124G and later the Hasselblad 500C/M. I do believe this has led to a lot more "yeses" than I would've gotten with a DSLR, especially since most images are shot around downtown Seattle where there is no shortage of DSLR-toting tourists.
I just looked on eBay, acquiring a medium-format body is pretty affordable. To hijack the thread a bit, do you have any insights about the TCO of shooting with one? It seems like lenses are still pretty expensive ( double the price of the body, at least ), and I'm guessing film and processing is not cheap.
Yeah, it really depends on where you are and how much DIY you're willing to do. Medium format bodies are pretty cheap, and even Hasselblad lenses aren't that bad on a software engineer's salary ($500-900-ish, unless you've got your sights set on a rare one). It's relatively cheap if you put them next to modern DSLR lenses at the same quality level (for Nikon and Canon, $1300-2000).
In this case, I only ever used two lenses on the Hasselblad - 80mm and 150mm, the 80mm being the "kit" lens and very cheap to find bundled with a used body.
TCO for film cameras is inevitably high - you're working with equipment at least two decades old, if not 3 or 4. In all likelihood nothing will go wrong, but eventually something will, and repair costs are non-trivial. If you want to shoot vintage film cameras you should hunt down some reputable maintenance people online - going to your local camera shop is a good way to pay a lot for shoddy work.
Film is inevitably expensive, with 120 medium format weighing in around $4-6 a roll, at 12 exposures a roll. Not a lot of room to screw up ;) Processing depends on where you live - in Seattle there used to be some inexpensive and good labs, but I believe they have mostly shut down since I moved away. You can "hack" processing for C-41 films in various ways via Walgreens or Wal-Mart. They are incapable of processing medium format in-house but can send it out, and they won't charge extra, though you have little control over quality then.
With black and white you can always develop on your own, but that requires a bit of willingness to DIY.
Depends on how much money you have to burn ;) There's also a crop factor issue when using digital backs, since they aren't the same size as the original film.
If you have a lot of money to burn, the latest gen digital backs are close enough to 6x4.5 that the crop factor is fairly insignificant. Older digital backs aren't even close, so you're shooting a substantial crop from the original intended image.
There is no such thing as a 6x6 sensor, unfortunately.
I don't know if it's terribly hipster, but I'm interested in the experience of shooting on film, as much as the hardware. I don't get to do it often, but I find I shoot much more methodically when I have to count my shots, and I don't end up with a million bracketed shots of the same boring thing that I thought might be cool. Obviously there are spray-and-pray film photographers, but when I want that experience, I grab my DLSR.
"Beyond Portraiture" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NNUYEW) is a good book that explains the specific process of getting strangers to agree to have their picture taken.
I have tried the techniques in the book successfully but never went the full length of getting anyone to sign a release form. Did you?
The pictures from this project on your blog are great! What software did you use for the gallery? It works nicely (although it's a little slow?)
A very old version of it, yes. I had to hack a few features into it that, at the time, didn't exist yet: modifying browser URL so you can link to a specific picture, and a custom Flickr plugin since it all draws from collections in my Flickr account.
It helps you learn how to socially interact, and more so feel confident with engaging. You learn how to socialize, and won't be giving off strange signals to people that will highlight that you're a stranger to them / potentially harmful.
I completely agree about the removal of the therapy.
Five years ago I worked fine dining as a server: I could talk to anyone about anything.
Now I work in a cubicle with minimal interaction. I am a social recluse: if I go to a bar, I bring a book.
About to start hard-selling one-to-one my software. A little nerve-wracking. Just took a trip to Baja with no spanish language skills. That's made me feel a lot better about my capacity to just "get out there".
I tasked myself with taking a portrait of a stranger every day. It was terrifying to start with, walking up to complete strangers and asking to take a picture of them, and it took me 1-2h each day before finding the picture. By the time I wrapped up the project I took that down to 30 min, and didn't even break a sweat. My rejection rate also went way, way down, and I was able to get much better pictures than the "man, this is awwwwwkward" images from the beginning of the project.
The one thing to note though, is that (at least for me) the effects of this kind of "therapy" aren't permanent. Once you take away the regular stimulus of putting yourself out there, you fall back into your normal steady state.