Monday, March 3, 2008

SPotlight Seven Week 9: Mike Peters

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For the 9th week of Spotlight 7, chief curator Daniel Krieger, aka smoothdude, has selected Mike Peters to be the featured portraitist. His photography was noticed after posting on the thread for aspiring Spotlight 7 photographers. Mike, originally from New Jersey, especially enjoys photographing the people and sights of Coney Island. Mike takes a lot of photos of strangers, and smoothdude asked about his approach:

4) How do you approach random people on the street to take their photograph?
I tend to be pretty obvious about what I'm up to, carrying a 120 slr is hard to hide. I usually just walk up, raise the camera, compose, focus and make the exposure. Sometimes they see me coming, sometimes not, either way I look them in the eye and smile when I'm done. There are times when I'm in the middle of a conversation when I'll just raise the camera and make a photo while I'm talking. And there have been one or two instances where someone has stopped me and asked if I would take a photo of them. There is no one way to do it. The main thing is not to be sneaky or tentative. Be bold and confident and people will usually accept your presence.


Check out the rest to read the whole interview and see all the photos, too in this week's edition of Spotlight Seven.

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