Letter from Boston
Volunteer Model
By MASAKO YAMADA
|
|
被写体のボランティア
このコラムで友人をネタにしてしまうことが多い雅子さん。先日、そのお返しの意味も込めて、写真家を目指す友人のために、モデルを務めることになりました。殺風景な写真学校のスタジオで、5、6人の生徒の前でポーズを取るのですが、自然な表情を作ることは難しく、プロの写真家とモデルの苦労を知りました。
|
One of my friends has always had a creative bent and she carries around her camera all the
time. She is infamous for snapping photos of her friends in rather embarrassing situations,
but at the same time, her friends have often appreciated the candid results. She has put a
lot of thought and effort into her hobby even though she has not had much formal training.
However, she has recently decided that she needs a more solid foundation in order to pursue
the art further, and has started to take classes in subjects such as graphic design and studio
photography.
When it comes to photography, however, classroom learning doesn't really mean that students
sit at their desks and take lecture notes. They spend most of their time actually taking
pictures and evaluating the results with a critical eye.
It takes different kinds of skills to take different kinds of pictures: awesome natural
scenery, beautiful bowls of fruit and ballet dancers on stage certainly cannot be treated in
the same manner. In my friend's class, the students are learning to take pictures of posed people
in a studio setting.
This means that the class is always looking for models — models who will pose for free, no less.
My friend sent out an e-mail message to many of her friends asking whether they'd be willing to be
models in her class.
She says that many of those people gave a positive response. I am one of the people. She made it
clear that the students were not looking for supermodels but rather people who would be able to
pose naturally, so I figured I'd be a sufficient candidate. Besides, I wanted to help her
pursue her goal of becoming a better photographer.
It's true that I probably would not have volunteered so readily if she were an aspiring
acupuncturist, plastic surgeon or hairstylist. But I knew that posing for a photography class
wouldn't hurt me at all, except perhaps for the knowledge that a whole classroom of students
would have photos of me (many of them in rather unflattering poses) that they might later
include in an exhibition or portfolio.
I've used my friends as topics for my articles so often that I figured that I could pay back a
little.
There is a photography school three minutes away from my laboratory and this is where the
session was held. I walked inside the photography school for the first time. The decor was
extremely stark. As far as I could see, there were no typical classrooms with desks and
blackboards. Instead, all of the rooms were box-shaped spaces with gray walls.
Lights, curtains, umbrellas, screens and wires were scattered about. The students took a long
time to adjust the angles of everything. Far from being glamorous, the scene of my first photo
shoot was practical and even a little grim.
The people in the classroom were very casual and nice, however, and I felt comfortable. They were
not the artsy sort. Rather, they seemed like kindly neighbors who happened to like taking
pictures.
As soon as they got the equipment ready, I sat on the designated seat, and the students
started snapping away. Five or six students must have taken photos of me.
They did not shoot all at once. Rather, they took pictures one at a time, since each student had
to plug his or her camera into the lighting setup to synchronize the flash and the
shutter. Besides, each student needed to practice moving me around.
I found it extremely difficult to create expressions that I didn't feel naturally. I suppose
it's common for professional photographers to coax brilliant smiles or sexy pouts from
professionals models even in the starkest of settings, but with amateur photographers and an
amateur model, this seemed nearly impossible.
While I was sitting in the studio, I felt newfound admiration for both professional
photographers and models for being able to create mood out of nowhere.
I have seen some copies of the photos that were taken, and sure enough, most of them are too
cheesy or too stiff. Two or three photos came out quite naturally, however, and it made me
want to learn more about what it is that makes these things "click." I'm sure the aspiring
photographers are trying to figure this out as well.
Shukan ST: Oct. 27, 2000
(C) All rights reserved
|