A Sense of Others

Others: those who surround us and reflect who we are. They react to us, just as we react to them, in a way we shape those who we interact with just as they do the same to us.
People react to you in a bigger way if you are trying to take a picture of them I have noticed. The bigger the camera, the more uneasy they seem to be in front of the lens for the first time. I don't understand the reason behind this, other that the "imitation factor" that may come into play I guess. There are some people who are very comfortable in front of the lens, Jasmin and Breanna became my models today and yesterday, they were comfortable, Jasmin because I have shot her before.....a lot, and Breanna because I'm really just guessing that that is how she is.
I think that both my portraits are fairly dramatic in their own ways. The first was inspired by a photographer in my hometown who often pairs dramatic settings like sunsets, and unique strobe lit scenes and a soft strobe on the model's face and body, lighting them. I tried to replicate that with Jasmin, using my off camera flash and a narrow street near Rue Daguerre. It turned out to my liking, though now after the fact I realize (again) that her face is dead center in the photo, something that I have a bad habit of doing all the time.
For Breanna's photo, it was less of my visualization, and more her grabbing me and saying "take a picture of me putting on red lipstick, because we're in Paris!" This is a photo that I would love to replicate, in a more controlled setting, with strobes or flashes lighting from a different angle that straight on soft sunlight. (Here I am thinking a darker background, with a flash to the back, and at a lower angle to the subject, with ambient light filling in the rest.) Of course there are about a million things I could do with a photo like this, but for a spur of the moment shot, with the group already departing for somewhere else and not wanting to get left behind, I think it is pretty good.
I realize I really like the effects of artificial light on some subjects. I guess I like to engineer an image, rather than just letting it happen. That's something I have learned from photographing people, also it is hard for me to get the image I want on the fly, I like to shoot from as many angles as I can, trying to input any unique effects I can to influence the image.