100 Strangers Project

anonymouscuban · February 8, 2011

There is a group on another photo site that shall remain nameless that is doing a challenge to photograph 100 strangers in 2011. There are no candids allowed. The photo must be of a stranger that you approached specifically for this challenge. You are supposed to learn something about the person and share it when you post the photo. I thought this was an awesome way to meet new people and really get yourself out of your comfort zone... well, not that much for since I talk to random strangers all the time. Still, I thought it would be cool to photograph 100 random strangers that I will probably never see again. As such, I wanted to share with my peeps here at Dgrin to see if maybe we can start our own threads with 100 strangers???

This is my first stranger and I will post the rest as I take them. Her name is Bridgette. I met her while riding the Powell-Hyde cable car in San Francisco. Bridgette is from Melbourne, Australia and was visiting San Francisco while on holiday. Actually, this was the first leg of a year long trip. She originally planned to start the year expedition in Mexico City - she has a college friend there - but decided to spend a week in San Francisco first. She had a couple more days in SF and then she's off to Mexico for a month. From there, she'll meet her boyfriend in England and they will spend the rest of the year traveling throughout Europe. I had such a pleasure talking and sharing travel stories as well as some some scary moments she had while walking through the Tenderloin at night by herself. I hope she made OK through the remainder of her stay in SF.

I took this shot while we were riding on the cable car. I used my SB-600 as fill. It was on camera and bounced off the roof of the cable car slight behind me. I actually think it turned out pretty good considering that we were pretty crammed on the car and I got one shot.

Bridgette - Stranger 1 of 100

Cuong · February 9, 2011

Interesting project.

Cuong

dawssvt · February 9, 2011

awesome idea!

jdryan3 · February 9, 2011

Great idea. I also like Oscar Wilde!

Kinkajou · February 9, 2011

Nice! I love the lay of her scarf

Really great idea... I'm glad you'll be keeping us posted

zoomer · February 9, 2011

What a fun project.
Sounds like something you will be very good at.
Hope you stick with it and keep sharing the shots with us.
She looks like a very friendly energetic person, when a photo is right, you can see their personality in their eyes.

schmoo · February 9, 2011

What a great start to such a cool project. Are you keeping all of 100 portraits and stories in one place or in different threads on Dgrin?

anonymouscuban · February 10, 2011

schmoo wrote: »

What a great start to such a cool project. Are you keeping all of 100 portraits and stories in one place or in different threads on Dgrin?

Schmoo... I will keep them all in this thread. I will add them as I get them and if I get more than one at a time, I will probably post one every couple days. I have another one to post but probably won't until tomorrow. Do you think I should just add them to my original post? Is there a limit to how many I can add to one?

zoomer · February 10, 2011

new post

jdorseydesign · February 10, 2011

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Vince - Stranger 2 of 100

I met Vince while taking a ride down to Fisherman's Wharf in SF. He is a conductor of one the Hyde & Powell cable-cars, although on this day he was collecting fares. He approached me to ask why I was carrying two cameras - I had my D700 and D300 bodies. The former with a normal zoom and the latter with an ultra wide angle.

We discussed the reason for the two different lenses and that I carried to bodies so I don't have to switch lenses. He explained that he recently bought his first DSLR and asked a few different questions about lens aperture and why the lenses I had are so much more expensive that the kit lenses that came with his body.

Vince has been working the cable-cars for 11 years. What struck me about him is that he was so happy and seemed to love his job. He told me that he used to drive a bus and he had a very different attitude then. He never spoke to any of his patrons. Later while working the cable-car, he realized how much better he felt when he engaged with people and found that most are very friendly. He also said that many of his customers are visitors to San Francisco and he feels a responsibility to make a good impression on them.

It was a joy talking to Vince and he made the ride on his cable-car a nice experience.

Awesome shot, but all I can see is "Tiny bokeh girl!"

anonymouscuban · February 10, 2011

jdorseydesign wrote: »

Awesome shot, but all I can see is "Tiny bokeh girl!"

HA... I considered cloning her out but didn't since I thought it added to to the "environmental portrait feel". I'll wait to hear other comments... If I get one more that says the same, she's getting eliminated. Unlike hit-men, I don't have a "No women, no children" policy.

zoomer · February 10, 2011

Another cool shot with lots of personality.....don't clone the little girl out....she looks like a little impossibly small Gumby walking down the street.

If you keep adding to this thread we will never know when you have posted a new shot and it will get impossibly long.

anonymouscuban · February 10, 2011

zoomer wrote: »

Another cool shot with lots of personality.....don't clone the little girl out....she looks like a little impossibly small Gumby walking down the street.

If you keep adding to this thread we will never know when you have posted a new shot and it will get impossibly long.

So start a new thread with each one? I guess I can do that.

I will remove this one from here and add as new thread. Makes more sense.

Shima · February 11, 2011

Very awesome idea for a project! I'm sure you'll meet lots more interesting people as you continue in this endeavor

schmoo · February 11, 2011

anonymouscuban wrote: »

So start a new thread with each one? I guess I can do that.

I will remove this one from here and add as new thread. Makes more sense.

Sorry I'm late to the game but either way, it's good. I would have suggested either posting a new entry in this thread, or starting a new thread and then linking to it in the first post of this one. What a cool, inspiring project.

lizzard_nyc · February 11, 2011

Can't wait to see your entries and stories. Some of them can be really moving shots and stories, some hilariouis, I can't wait to see where yours takes you.
I got up to stranger #4 or 5 and quit. Turns out I"m not all that friendly.

anonymouscuban · February 11, 2011

lizzard_nyc wrote: »

Can't wait to see your entries and stories. Some of them can be really moving shots and stories, some hilariouis, I can't wait to see where yours takes you.
I got up to stranger #4 or 5 and quit. Turns out I"m not all that friendly.

Liz... really? You should go back to it. I think you'd do well. Besides, part of the project is to challenge yourself to approach people and get your out of your comfort zone.

System · February 11, 2011

Great idea, I'll be watching this thread.

aktse · February 11, 2011

I wish you luck on this project! I actually like all the images together... maybe edit the first post and add smaller copies of the images?

How many stranger portraits were you able to do with your short trip to the bay area?

anonymouscuban · February 11, 2011

aktse wrote: »

I wish you luck on this project! I actually like all the images together... maybe edit the first post and add smaller copies of the images?

How many stranger portraits were you able to do with your short trip to the bay area?

I got four but I'm not happy with two of them. Do you remember those girls' names at the Vietnamese place? I think it was Miriam and Brittney.

aktse · February 11, 2011

anonymouscuban wrote: »

I got four but I'm not happy with two of them. Do you remember those girls' names at the Vietnamese place? I think it was Miriam and Brittney.

Miriam was one of them, but I can't remember the other one.

amoncur · February 11, 2011

What a cool idea. A friend of mine created his own challenge to photograph something, anything, every day for 1 year. I thought that was a cool idea, too, but this seems even more interesting since you have to photograph a person (and a stranger, no less).

schmoo · February 16, 2011

OK, it's official. I'm starting 100 strangers.

Thanks to Alex in advance... esp if I get punched in the face

anonymouscuban · February 16, 2011

schmoo wrote: »

OK, it's official. I'm starting 100 strangers.

Thanks to Alex in advance... esp if I get punched in the face

Awesome! Did you join the 100strangers.com group? Make sure you do. Its nice to share the photos with the others participating and it also is an easy way for your stranger to go see the photo you took.

Haven't had a chance to go out and meet any new strangers since my trip to SF but I'm going up to Santa Barbara this weekend so I hope to find at least one while I'm there.

Make sure to post your strangers. And I really doubt you'll get punched. I'm surprised how open people are to having their picture taken especially if you ask them first. Make sure you explain the project.

schmoo · February 21, 2011

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Awesome! Did you join the 100strangers.com group? Make sure you do. Its nice to share the photos with the others participating and it also is an easy way for your stranger to go see the photo you took.

Haven't had a chance to go out and meet any new strangers since my trip to SF but I'm going up to Santa Barbara this weekend so I hope to find at least one while I'm there.

Make sure to post your strangers. And I really doubt you'll get punched. I'm surprised how open people are to having their picture taken especially if you ask them first. Make sure you explain the project.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I actually am waiting to start because I ordered 100 Minicards from MOO.com, each with a pic of a person on the front and a URL for the gallery on the back. I figured it's a cost-effective way to (a) share the pic when it's up, (b) look legit, and (c) keep track of how many portraits I've done. When the box is empty, I'm finished. The website you pointed to had some great suggestions on how to turn down the creep factor.

Can't wait to see more of yours!

Hackbone · February 21, 2011

Very cool idea and what a way to learn!!

indiegirl · February 21, 2011

I would love to do this, too! I don't dig on the whole flickr thing, though. I'm a bit anti-flickr. Maybe I'll just do a smug group. Anyone else wanna do a smug group?

Seneca · February 21, 2011

Great project...I actually thought of doing the same last year...but my project was going to be titled "365 perfect strangers in one year". I didn't follow through.

reyvee61 · February 22, 2011

A Smug group would be better...since Yahoo got a hold of Flickr things have gotten crazy there.....

anonymouscuban · February 22, 2011

I'm in for doing a smug group. I'll create it later today.

ian408 · February 22, 2011

Wonderful idea!

A note on the bus driver thing. Apparently, they're not well liked and known to be somewhat surely at times. I think it's mostly because the crowd that rides the bus is very different than that which rides the cable cars. This is especially true outside of the commute hours--the bus drivers put up with a lot of crap on a regular basis.

100 Strangers Project

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