Before I picked up a camera I used to be a gamer. Pretty much any type of game – board, card, table top, RPG. Anything really.

Time and the pressures of family and work have kind of pushed me to the fringes of the hobby but I sometimes surface. Today some friends opened a gaming centre and I knew I had to go and support it.

Turns out it was also a good place to take some photos.

Like I said before, I was lucky enough for a mate to volunteer to model for me. I’ve taken plenty of pictures of friends, and Kevin isn’t the first to let me take a photo of them. However, he was the first mate I specifically set out to take photos off rather than just shot as part of a days activities.

The difference is, this time the sole objective of the evening was to get some good photos, not to play poker and have a laugh.

I also got myself worked into a bit of a tizzy coming up this this as I really wanted to impress.

Looking at the photos from the night, I don’t think I did.

So, where’d it go wrong?

I think my first mistake was not planning the shots more carefully. I knew I wanted the lighting effect in the third picture above and I wanted a sort of head on B&W pose, but I never considered what sort of approach to actually take to achieve that. I also never considered that taking 60 pictures of Kevin with similar looks on his face would become problematic – the expressions are not his fault!

I think I got the gear a little wrong to. I obsessed over using a single light for the subject and a reflector, but because there were just the two of us I couldn’t get the reflector to set up how I wanted. In retrospect I should have just set up a second strobe on low power and lived with the impact.

One interesting thing which I’d been told and tried but really only became convinced off during the session was the power of F/11. These are all taken at F/11 around 80 - 100mm and they give a nice feel. Possibly helped by the nice plain wall, but it’s nice to see peoples heads in focus…

When all is said and done though, I did have a great time doing this. I’ll be hassling more mates to volunteer in the future.

This isn’t the mate who offered to pose for me a week or so ago. I’m still working up the courage to check he’s happy with the pictures I took of him (though at least one is on his facebook page, so…)

I’m finding that models aren’t like your mates or your family. Sure, they’re motivated to help you get the best picture you can and they’ll follow instruction really well, but they also know what to expect and know what you’re doing. Unlike friends and family, there isn’t that natural history and experience that lets them and you be comfortable in each others presence and if you’re shooting in a crowd there’s a lot of distraction going on.

Strikes me that you need to build something of a rapport with the model, good or bad. I’ve read about photographers in the 60’s who’d be almost confrontational to get the “angry young man” shot. Not sure I’m up to getting people to hate me on purpose (I do well enough with that by accident).

Certainly, when I look back on the shots I took of Christine, the better pictures are later in the session when I’d given up trying to act like I knew what I was doing and was just chatting with her and taking pictures.

Funnily enough,  I noticed a similar effect when taking pictures of my mate. The more I tried to take“modelesque” pictures of him, the worse they became. Indeed one of his favourite shots was when we were goofing around and I was trying to explain what the lights were doing. I think my stress at trying to get things “just so” and look knowledgeable was translating into awkwardness and tension in the pictures.

Maybe for me, that’s the most valuable thing I got out of taking pictures of people recently. Have fun and enjoy the experience and it’ll translate into your pictures.