Portrait Photography with the Fuji

Portraits of people in Bend

Portrait photography was my most difficult subject when I was studying photojournalism at San Francisco State. The newspaper where I started working as a photographer, the Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa, had a program called Friends and Neighbors. The photographer would drive around town and find an interesting person to do a portrait of and then ask the same written questions. Then when the newspaper needed to fill a space, these pictures would get used.

Since portrait photography was my weak link, I worked extra hard to get better at them. What better way than to do Friends and Neighbors. Of course me being me I got into trouble right off the bat by doing a portrait of a rebel kid smoking a cigarette leaning out the window of a classic black Camaro car. A rebel without a cause. But he was smoking. Heaven forbid a portrait shows a person being the person they are in real life. By the way, this would be a recurring theme with my photographs the entire 15 years I worked as a newspaper photographer. Showing the world as it really is instead of what the editors thought it should look like so as to not ruffle anyone’s feathers. Then getting into trouble for doing this anyway. It’s a gift. And a curse.

I digress.

For a long time I’ve been wanting to do these around Bend. I tried for the entire 12 years working at The Bulletin to make it happen, but they weren’t ever interested. Sadly for me, because I always loved doing them. Even when getting into trouble for sometimes showing the nitty gritty of humanity.. So after a really long time thinking about doing it, at the end of last summer I did my first one at the Athletic Club of Bend.

Using and loving to use the Fuji XT-5 was what put it over the top. I was originally planning on using the Canon with the amazing 28-70mm f2.0 lens, but carrying that thing around always turned me off ever so slightly. The Fuji is small and light and I can change the look of the picture while shooting in JPEG.

So I finally worked up the courage to get out there and start doing these. My first subject was MJ. She’s a student at University of Washington studying journalism. Her goal is to be an investigative journalist and break the big award winning stories. I tried telling her that might not happen and she would be very low paid for the hard work she’ll be putting in, but she’s stubborn and determined, so I wish her success.

We were at the ACB pool in the bright sun. So I had to try to use that bright light to my advantage. Luckily there’s some shade by the entryway with the bright sun reflecting off the cement and into the shadow. I put her on the rail and noticed the other rails made a nice zig-zag pattern leading to her. I bent her elbow on the rail to keep the zig-zag going and did a few pictures. The black and white looked way better, and so I kept it. The Fuji 90mm f2.0 (135mm equivalent) lens was used.