Saturday, 26 September 2009

• The 100 Strangers Project

  After reading this post, it made me think about the strangers I encounter when I'm traveling. On my last trip to Hawaii, I encountered many nice strangers who all had a similar idea of recommending me books to read. I'm up to my knees in books that these lovely people told me to check out.
  
  Its hard to talk to strangers. Even when I'm not on vacation. Luckily, this solo trip opened me up and allowed me to get be friendly and improve my social skills. You never know who you'll meet, right? (As long as you are careful of course)
  
  What if you took it to the next level? The 100 Project is a great example of this.
  
  From their website:
  

  
  

  The idea

  The One Hundred Strangers project is a learning group for people who want to improve the social and technical skills needed for taking portraits of strangers and telling their stories. The method is learning by doing.

  The project is lots of fun and improves photo-journalistic skills. During the process you might expand your every day living experience - and who knows, maybe you will even get a couple of new friends during the process.

  We welcome both beginner and advanced photographers. You may be new to photographing strangers or already have experience of this type of photography.

  The challenge

  Take 100 photographs of at least 100 people you don't know. Approach a person or group of people and ask for permission to both take a photo of them and to post it to the flickr 100 Strangers group. Get to know your subjects. Who are they? What is their life like?

  Try to tell a small story with each photo you take. This may be a story about the person or how you felt approaching that particular individual. You may have, for example, tried a new approach or used a new photographic technique. Try to learn something from every encounter you make.

  Interested? Here are a few examples I enjoyed:

  
  

  For the 100 Strangers Project.
  
  A lovely bride posing for her bridal portraits at Ba Da Guan in Qing Dao, China. We exchanged a few words. I congratulated her. She had sequins on her super long false eyelashes. Quite striking.
  

  
  

  This is Trent Parker Shelton. he is a twenty something army vet video-game-aholic. he has a little cloud of darkness hovering just above his evil smile and snake-y eyes. this is, for whatever odd reason, unbearably attractive to me. we were both headed to Hastings in Boise, ID on this particularly hot afternoon. he was having some car trouble trying to start his beautiful black corvette. it eventually started and we drove off.
  
  This sounds like a wonderful little project I'd like to do!
  
  For more information about the 100 Strangers Project: Click Here
  
  Would you participate in the 100 strangers project? What if someone wanted to take your picture: Would you?
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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