People who need people

I have been looking at a lot of photography lately. And I mean a LOT!  It is my season to enter competitions and, in turn, reviewing the results of past competitions. The one thing I noticed is that judges really like photos with a human element. That’s really great considering I rarely have any people in my photographs. Probably because I don’t photograph around people very often. When I’m in a city environment there’s usually too many people and in order to avoid “crowd” shots, I tend to focus more on details and architecture. When I’m in rural environments I look for just about anything to photograph but people are often few and far between.

Don’t get me wrong though, I do like some people shots. I like street photography only when they are well composed and show the interaction of the person with the environment. I do not like the random “camera at the hip” shots of folks walking on the sidewalk. I just don’t get those. I also don’t care for straight on portraits too often. I do like portraits that show a little bit of the environment, especially if it’s an “exotic” person and environment (for Americans that’s just about anyone from and in another country). The close-up of the craggily face just doesn’t do it for me, although I have done that kind of shot in the past.

With that, I am going to make an attempt to add some humans to my photography this year. I’m not doing it to win any contests, I’m doing it as a self challenge to broaden my scope. How I am going to go about it I don’t know. I am not going to copy any kind of style, I’ll just wing it as usual but I kind of know what I want. I actually “saw” a few good photos the past year that would have included people but I never followed through on them. In my head I’m already there.

So, here’s looking at you (maybe).

© David Guidas