True Stories

Photo shootings start with decisions. Where do I go? What should I wear? Shall I wear anything? What kind of pictures I want to take? Which lens shall I use? Wide angle lenses tend to make big eyes...

...while tele lenses tend to make big eyes, too.

Portraits. That's what I should go for. And Portraits require portrait lenses. While snapping on my 85mm f1.8 lens, I thought about the usual drawbacks of outdoor photography. For example sudden weather changes can affect the mood of a picture drastically...

...and working with flashes can create the nasty "Red Eye" effect, which turn normal people into demonic monsters.

I decided to train for a bit and to avoid my Japanese lessons, I asked my Japanese teacher Yoshiko-san if she likes to model for some test shots instead of teaching Japanese. Lucky guy I am, she agreed. To take a good picture, you need to know what a bad picture is. And I can take bad pictures! Actually I am pretty good in taking bad pictures! Or am I bad in taking good pictures? While thinking this confusing thoughts, I took my first picture of Yoshiko-san and it turned out not to be a good one. Or a bad one?

Yoshiko-san had to stare into the sun, could not see anything and doesn't look too happy. But shall I look into the sun? I also could not see anything! Not a good idea if you ask me. But she convinced me that I should be the one who stares in the sun, I am her student after all. To do her the favor, I gave it a try and made another picture.

Much better than before, but far from perfect. Yes, I came much closer now to what I wanted to do, but somehow I missed a more balanced exposure, need to elimate some shadows in the foreground, add a catchlight to the eyes and a smile to the face. It seems I have to go for a flash. Unfortunately the typical camera construction doesn't support vertical shots very well and the flash comes too far from the side to make useful pictures. To proof myself how bad a side mounted flash behaves, I took a picture of my still volunteering model in front of a wall to point out the ugly shadows on the right side. The resulting picture turned out to be a bad demonstration sample only, but at least it would make a great mug shot, which will come handy if Yoshiko-san ever decides to kill me for being such a bad photographer.

Finally I attached my self modificated and several kilograms heavy stroboframe to the camera, so that I am at least able to take vertical shots with the flash above the lens. But the cable is too long, too expensive to cut and overall the camera turns into an unhandy ugly something with the guts hanging out. This is just perfect to scare the last out of random models, while pointing this monster in their direction. There must be a better solution...unfortunately my model slowly lost her motivation and patience to get the flash right.

Yoshiko-san gave finally up and left me while telling me some new Japanese words, which she later refused to translate. But...! I am not done yet! Damn! I need a model replacement. A substitute. Anybody. Anything.

Mhm, why I didn't had this idea before? A spoon makes a much better and patient model than I ever could imagine!

Yeah, so much better! The first time this day that my model actually smiles! But somehow I prefer to work with girls, women or female models, so some improvements with a stolen lipstick from my girlfriend made me pretty happy with the result.

A construction worker passed by, looked at me, looked at my spoon (I got only a bit jealous), looked at me again and greeted me with one of these thousands words in Japanese for hello: "Baka!". I looked after him, looked at my spoon, looked at his helmet and suddenly I had THE IDEA! All my testing was good for something! I went into a shop, bought some stuff, went home and created what every photographer is looking for: THE PERFECT LIGHT! But is it the perfect light? I believed it and I doubt it. My stomach felt funny. Maybe I made the biggest invention in photographic history, or I am just a loser. Or both. I had to test this again with a real model. A model which never smiled before. Yoshiko-san came to mind. After some motivating "words" and some sweet talking to her...

...she agreed to model for a final picture using my invention. I was nervous. Very nervous. My spoon encouraged me, so finally I took the picture...and yes! Gotcha! It worked! She smiled! She has catchlights in her eyes! The light is balanced! And did I mentioned that she smiled? Just perfect! After a sleepless night full of excitement, I managed an appointment with my fellow photographer colleague June in a nearby park...