Photographing Men

Photographing men is SO very different than photographing women.  The posing is different, and it’s something that I am still learning.  When I put out a call for a model shoot, Makaile responded.  I told him that we could schedule a date, but he had to be patient with me.  He agreed, and we made plans to shoot at the State Capitol.  I wanted something with strong lines and a masculine feel.  I also wanted to shoot there ever since I visited it for the first-time last month.  We agreed to meet at 3:00pm on a Saturday.

I always arrive at the location at least 15 minutes ahead of a shoot to scope out the area.  In this case, I arrived 30 minutes early.  I had never photographed a session, and I wanted to see how the light looked.  Since it was 3:00pm, the sun was on the south side of the building.  

Makaile is a junior at a local college.  When he arrived, we went into the building. I wanted to shoot on the second floor, but there wasn’t a great deal of ambient light present.  We decided to go downstairs because I wanted to get to the area with a lot of natural light.  Before moving to that area, we stopped in the corridor because of the columns and rows of light.   We had the entire space to ourselves which made it me feel more comfortable.  Prior to Makaile arriving, I looked at images of men so that I had a shoot list in my mind.  One of the things that I learned was to have a man inhale before depressing the trigger.  This makes him look larger, and he fills the frame.  I gave these instructions to Makaile.

We finally found the area that was open to the outside, and the light was gorgeous!  We shot in that area for a while, and we had an audience for a short time.  I was very pleased with the fact that I didn’t freeze up while I was photographing Makaile.

We moved back into the building, and I saw an area full of chairs.  I asked Makaile to sit in the middle chair.  I backed up into the hallway in order to capture the full set of chairs.  Oh, my word!  The set of images from this area blew me away.

The last set of images were taken outside in straight sunlight.  I wanted sharp edges to the images because I felt that it was appropriate when photographing a man.  I tend to shy away from hard light, but I’m glad that I pushed myself to use it for this shoot.

It’s my plan to photograph more men.  I may have to do more Time for Print sessions, but I’m okay with that plan.