Via Flickr:
I was having a friendly game of darts with a few work mates when the pub suddenly filled with lots of people dressed up for Halloween and I decided this was a must do stranger opportunity. Dave was the one that caught my eye mainly because he reminded me of Slash so I went and grabbed my camera bag and ploughed into the middle of them. As most of my work mates know that I am doing this project I probably had a bit of an audience behind me but as I kept my back to them the whole time I have no idea if they were watching or not – I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have felt any pressure anyway as I’d been in the pub for a while by now – if you see what I mean.
Dave has recently finished doing a PhD in something to do with genetics and now works at the Centre for Life doing something to do with genetics. A friend of mine works there and has taken on a training role for the last few years so I asked Dave if he knew him which he didn’t but one of his friends did (the girl bottom left in the group shot) – Newcastle’s a lot smaller than it seems.
I tried taking a few shots holding a flash off to the side and triggering it remotely but the flash didn’t fire – not sure why as I’d checked the settings beforehand when I was out at lunchtime and it was working fine then and I’ve since checked again and everything is still setup correctly and I was holding it in my left hand which meant that the sensor was pointing towards my camera so I have no idea what the problem was. Nonetheless the images are just about acceptable sharpness and brightened up OK in Photoshop.
Dave’s friends were milling about showing interest and wandering off throughout so I asked a few of them to group together for another shot and those that were listening at the time obliged but stood some distance apart so I could only see about two and a half of them in the viewfinder given the space that I had to work with. I asked them to huddle up a bit more and the group shot is the result. The four non-Daves (probably) in the shot are notable because they are the first strangers that I have included in my project without knowing their names.
Dave and co, you were all obviously enjoying yourselves so thanks very much for taking a bit of time out to help me with my project.
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This picture is #52 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
99% Digital 