 In 2014, I was sitting in a stuffy black suit with a string tie on, because I thought that was hip and kind of cool, right? At a black tie event, at some nondescript hotel in the confluence of four highways in the middle of the UK for the NPA Awards. So the NPA is the Master Photographer Awards. And the reason I was sitting there in this kind of that ballroom, you know, that's done up in the way that, you know, so often these end of year kind of slash pseudo award things have done. You know, a couple of uplighters and maybe some, you know, scaffolding with, you know, some bits on at the front and then a DJ at the back with a bow tie and stuff. And I'd been invited along because I had a finalist image in there in the Olympus Open category. And this has all come about because 20 years earlier, I had been sitting in a lecture room at Pretoria Technicom Furlough School, probably on a Friday afternoon because I think that's when we used to have a critique sessions. And I put up my first portrait. The first portrait I shot, you know, specifically to be judged or marked is probably is better, better source thing. And I was immensely proud of this. It was like, oh, this is so good, so good. And the first thing out of everybody's mouth was Alex, you, hello, you focused on his watch. So I photographed a friend of mine called Ian who'd been from, you know, high school with me. And I got him to pose like this because, you know, that's that's how real poses are. And he was wearing a watch as well. So that's like, you know, two rookie mistakes in one. And I'd photographed, you know, focused on his watch. So it planted in my head a seed that technical things were what people would jump on, right? That, you know, I'm focused on the wrong thing. I should have focused on his eyes. And throughout the whole of my student career, I kind of worked on the technical aspects of things. Despite the fact that I wanted to be a portrait photographer. I was I was terrible with people like I really couldn't talk to them. Hence, I kind of photographed my classmates and maybe a few people who are kind of new outside of class, but I never photographed anything where they didn't really know. And it was all really kind of like, sit there, do this, do that. Other eyes in focus. Yes, they are. We're all good. And if you look at these portraits, they're kind of, they're okay, but they don't have anything to them. Right. There's no character really. So in true technical sense, they're not really portraits. They're more just kind of pictures of classmates. And then I kind of just, you know, drifted off from a little bit. I went in to do weddings and things like that. I did kind of left portraiture to one side. But over time, I had learned to be a little bit more comfortable. You're talking to strangers, especially like, well, you're not a stranger. You come all the time, you know, but I got used to talking and making a little bit of conversation. And when I moved back into the studio, I had a desire to do portraits like a lady called Lisa Visser. Along with kind of Sue Brice and stuff. Lisa Visser was actually a finder along with me at the NPA Awards. And she used to do, or she still does, I think, these portraits of kids in what in the UK is called a fine art style. So that basically means, you know, a blank and white picture of a child looking po-faced. That was kind of, you know, I don't know if in America they have like a similar kind of thing. But, you know, let me know in the comments anyway. So it's kind of morphed into more sort of an ason. So you're sort of looking sort of stuff nowadays. So that's kind of what I wanted to do. And I was looking at, you know, replicating it from a technical point of view. It took me a couple of goes to get used to, you know, to, to lighting a bit better, to finding my feet in this kind of lighting sort of style. But the images didn't really, they weren't landing still. And so I did some test shoots with people and I got to talking. And, and there was a throwaway comment that I'd had from somebody, a friend of my, my, my parents. Now I'd photographed his wife as a, you know, like a portrait. And he said to me, he says, you know, you Alex, there's something that happens when you are photographing. You are in a position where you can talk to, and he said, you know, he said his wife's name. And he said, and he said, you were able to talk to her in a way that if you had been in the state agent, I would have punched the lights out. I said, well, that's very weird. And he said, there's something about it that you are, when you're in this situation, photographing something, it becomes a very intimate event and people seem to open up to you and show you a side of themselves that is hidden for want of a better word. And I thought, okay, well, there's this thing. So maybe I should channel into that. So I did some test shoots and I got some, some, you know, some younger kids in because I thought, well, I want to do your copy, Lisa, Lisa thing. So I kind of sat there and said, well, are they going to have something? So what's missing him? And I went, oh, you know what's missing is the story, some sort of connection. I'd spent a lot of time looking at portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. And, you know, and, and there's always something about them. There's a bit of character that was lacking in mind and a lot of other imitators of, of Lisa Fisser. And so how are we going to tease this out? And the first thing was to make sure that people are relaxed. All right. So I always made a point, you know, having a chat with, with the guys. And if it was a young son that, you know, the parents were there and stuff, I would, you know, obviously talk to the mum and dad, but then, you know, to spend my time talking to the person. So, you know, asking what sort of things that they liked. And you get the conversation going. You start off, you start off light and you start off and easy things, you know, to talk about where's your favorite place to go on holiday? You know, who's your best friend at school? You know, you're looking forward to holidays. When's your birthday? You know, oh, I have a friend who's born on the same day. That kind of small talk. So it gets them relaxed, gets them into the groove. Right. It gives you also a chance to warm up. Because I think, I think of portrait photography a lot like a sport that, you know, you and the sitter, you need to warm up. Right. Now, you know, obviously when you're photographing commercially and also say you don't have these kind of luxuries, but we're talking about, you know, people where you have some time to create portraits, you know, for, you know, for your own sort of enjoyment as it were. And you want to go through this process of seeing how they react to things, of picking up on cues. Do they talk about certain things? Do they mention things? I remember photographing a young lady once who we've been talking, and I've photographed her a few times actually. So her mum was a little bit more kind of, oh, you know how you're doing stuff. And she mentioned that this particular young lady had been subject to bullying at school, and they had changed schools. And I thought, well, that's, you know, it's a terrible thing. And I thought, well, I'm not going to ask her how she, you know, the upset, and obviously the, you know, the mental, you know, struggles because of bullying. Because bullying is a terrible, terrible thing. And because we don't want kids to go to those places, right? We want kids to give us some story and stuff. And so I said, well, look, you know, let's channel, let's find this. Let's take some of this. How do you feel now that you've moved to school, right? And that you are no longer kind of having to deal with all these idiots and stuff like that. I feel, I feel good about it. So if, you know, in 20 years' time, if you saw these people again, right, how would you kind of, you would be like, you know, you tried to break me, but you didn't. I'm like this. And it's like a little game. I think, you know, if you watch kind of Peter Hurley, he's a relatively famous hedgehog photographer, and I remember watching a video of his, where he talks about, you know, putting people into a scenario where they, you know, they have a game to play out. That's something else you can do, especially with older people. You know, so I think the one thing that sticks in me, you know, talking about actors, saying, well, you just won an Oscar. How do you feel? Right? So over the time, I managed to build this up. And this brings us neatly on to Karen. So by this point, you know, Karen comes into the studio and initially just to do some photographs of how, you know, just a headshot actually, you know, she came for a headshot session. And I'd said, you know, bring a couple of changes of clothing. And, you know, and we can do some relaxed ones. We can do some sort of more sort of dramatic and stuff like that. So we started off nice and nice. I said, what sort of feel do you like? You know, what sort of things? She goes, I go to Greece a lot. You know, I love living in Greece. That, hence, you know, why I've got all the kind of the, the very casual, very, you know, the outfits. I was like, okay, why don't we do the light dish area? Okay. And, you know, so these photographs and she's doing all sorts of stuff. And as we're talking, so, you know, why do you, why do you, you know, why Greece? And she's like, oh, well, you know, my second husband, you know, he, he, he spent a lot of time there and stuff like this. I really liked the place. And she goes, oh, you know, that's kind of cool. And then, you know, we got talking and found out she works in a, you know, a museum. I think she was a consultant for museums or something. So, you know, that's, that's pretty cool. Interesting job, you know, and stuff like that. And, and we got talking through all this and she mentioned something about struggle in her life. And I said, oh, okay, that's interesting. And, and this is where this idea of this kind of weird space where if you play your cards right, if you are calm enough, I think this is important to say you need to be, you need to, it needs to become space, which is why knowing how to take photographs without fussing and being crazy, you know, sort of thing is so important that she volunteered as a thing. So we got, we got talking through it. And I kind of, I sort of looked, what I want you to do, we're going to take some of that, right? Because I said, that must have been very hard. And she said, no, it was a terrible thing for me. I didn't, didn't like it. But what I'd like you to do is to channel that, much like I mentioned with the girl earlier, and make it feel, you know, if you have just walked into a ballroom, right, some sort of gala event, and you are just like the hottest of hot things in that room. You are like, everybody's kind of like, wow, this is Karen. She's like a, not like a diva kind of thing, but somebody who has overcome real struggle, genuine struggle in their life, right? And I want you to channel this through, right? I want you to just stand like this, nice and tall. And this is where you start talking quite, quite quietly. It's weird. It's a wonderful thing when this, this, this vibe descends into the studio. It's great. I love it. Right? And I said, okay, we'll stand there and just, you know, making sure that her pose is, is more or less right. Nothing too difficult. Okay. Because I want her to focus on the story. So she sits there and she comes up and I say, just a little bit, a little bit that doing all this kind of super icy kind of stuff. And there's a moment that just the right expression flicks over her face. Right? The frames prior and after, it's totally different photograph. And that is where, you know, you talk about like Henry Carter-Bresson, he talks about the decisive moment and, and all this kind of thing. People think it just only applies to street photography, but they're wrong. They're wrong because the decisive moment in portraiture is so powerful because it is so fleeting. It's just, it's there and then it's gone. And you get a feel for it. You get a feel for when this, it's coming, it's coming. You can feel it coming. You feel it, it's there, it's there, it's there, it's there. And then it's gone. Right? And the mistake I think a lot of photographers make is to keep machine gunning their way through it. Sam, Sam, Sam. There, come on. That whole Austin Powers vibe. Yes, baby. Yes, baby. Yes, baby. If you're looking for an up tempo shoot that's all about vibe and energy, that's fine. If you're looking for character, if you're looking for soul, if you're looking for connection, then you need to have a quiet environment, a calm place where these things can happen, where you can watch them happen and you can almost orchestrate it. It is a beautiful, wonderful thing. And any photographer is capable of doing this. This is, this is why I find it very frustrating because I know, I used to struggle, you know, with this idea, I can say boo to a goose. You know, there was so many, but I mean, I had to get one of my friends at photo school to go and ask somebody from down the corridor if I could photograph them because I was too scared. I was that nervous, but I learned that, you know what, once you get used to it, once you get into the groove and things that you end up taking photographs, that if you want your portraits to stand out, if you want them to be the thing that people look at and go, oh my God, your work is so wonderful, that these people look amazing. That's the connection that you need to work on. The technical aspects of things are fairly simple. They're not difficult. You know, that picture of Karen, it's, it's technically, it's not good, I mentioned that, but just connect with people, be interested in them and they will, they will talk to you. They will volunteer stuff, things about themselves and it's your job to pick up on them, to not scratch away at the surface that some sort of saw until the person starts crying, you know, but to give them a space to express something inside them that is precious and beautiful to them. Because when you capture that, when you capture that moment, then you are making a beautiful portrait of somebody who for that moment you cared deeply about. I was getting quite emotional about this when I'm thinking about it because I, I miss those taking those pictures. I miss doing stuff like that and that's why I'm starting a second channel shortly about portraiture, about how to not just like things but those important, this important thing of, of how to take all of the stuff that we learn, the hidden things that books don't talk about and impart them into your portraits. A portrait photographer whom I absolutely adore in a very different kind of way is Mark Selinger and I've linked to his video over here. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.