It goes in waves

Yesterday, I ended up taking two different stranger's portraits.  A month ago, I speculated that a change of scenery and travel was all that I'd really need to break out of a little slump I'd been in as far as taking good stranger's photos.  I figured that once I got up to San Francisco, I'd be able to get a lot of strangers shots.  Well, yes and no.

Doing this project, I realize that you have to pick your moments.  A lot of time, I'm on the move and it doesn't always work really well to just stop, turn around and then approach someone you just saw to take their photo.  I've actually found that it's easier if I've already engaged them in a little conversation before asking them for a photo.  Some people work differently, but for me that seems to work the best.

Saturday, I was walking around the village area in Claremont looking for some interesting people of which to take photos.  I wasn't actually looking for a stranger shot, but more for some street photography and I ended up getting a fairly decent shot.  One of the groups I belong to on Flicker is a weekly challenge group.  The Sunday of each week, a weekly theme is posted and you're supposed to go out and take a photo for that theme.

I've been doing very well each week with the theme for the week.  I just ended up waiting until the last minute to get a street shot for this week.  But the real story is while I was taking that shot, Mike and Kenneth passed me by and then engaged me in a conversation that led to me being part of Mike's senior thesis and both Mike and Kenneth being part of my stranger project.  

Mike, who is pictured at top, was working on his college senior thesis.  He wants to be a Foursquare minister after getting out of college and so some of the questions were rather intriguing.  I gave him my insight on what I believed and he was satisfied with my answers and then I turned the table and asked him to be part of my project as well.  Mike was a little hesitant, but Kenneth was very enthusiastic (probably because he's a photographer as well), and his enthusiasm swept Mike into the project.

We ended up talking with each other for about 15 to 20 minutes and afterward I had two stranger photos to go along with a stranger photo that I'd gotten up in San Francisco.  Earlier, I'd been worried that I might not get another stranger shot and I've gotten three in the past 9 days or so.  The key is perhaps to not go looking for them as they will come to you.