Looking closely at People
Art festivals are one of my favorite occasions for spontaneous portraiture. People there want to be photographed, be they performers or visitors. I take my big rig, and often hear, “take our picture!” I always oblige, although those are not always the images I cherish.
I try for that decisive moment as Cartier-Bresson called it. Those photos often have little vignettes that bring out charming glimpses. I have done post “glimpses”, but today I want to concentrate on decisive crops of my main subjects.
This post is in response to Ritva’s challenge Lens-Artists #385 – Unusual Crop. I am departing slightly from the challenge to stick to a tight topic – with one exception and one repeat from a previous challenge.
Enjoy my views.
.:. © 2026 Ludwig Keck
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What a fun gallery. You made photographing people look easy. Well done!
Thank you, Pepper. Sixty+ years of trying helps.
Quite the gallery Ludwig! All are wonderful – I must admit I’m a bit shy about asking people if I can capture their image but the few times I’ve done so the reaction has always been positive. The issue is once you ask you typically get a “posed” result. How on earth did you capture such wonderful expressions???
Thank you, Tina.
As my post here tells, these were mostly taken at art festivals. Most of the images are performers, they concentrate on their work and ignore the photographers around them. Other folks don’t seem to mind having their photo taken. All the photos are tight crops, I don’t usually get too close to people. Years ago I used to hand out business cards to people I photographed and noted the photo frame number and asked them to get in touch and I would provide them with a copy of the photo free of charge. Nobody ever responded.
How wonderful, Ludwig!
Thank you, PR
Excellent crops Ludwig 👏
Thank you, Steve
Thanks Ludwig for joining, one subject matter is not a problem with me at all. I looked through the gallery few times, and the expressions are great. I picked these as my top choices – 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 19. all for slightly different reason.
Thank you very much, Ritva. I am delighted that you looked at my photos and chose favorites.
I like these a lot, Ludwig. You brought out those people’s expressions to the forefront using those crops. Excellent job.
Thank you, Egidio. You are very kind.
These are great Ludwig! You captured peoples’ personalities–even the bird’s! I’m so glad one of my photos inspired this post.
Thank you, Anne. I am happy that I paid attention to your nice post.
This is am amazing gallery of people Ludwig. I can’t seem to get good people photos. I am in awe 😀
Thank you, bushboy. All it takes is hundreds of exposures – but you knew that.
Oh I like these Ludwig. I wish I could do that here but the data protection laws forbid it. Even just taking them (not even talking about publishing) is difficult and I have been accosted once or twice by aggressive people (once, at least, when I wasn’t even focussing on them but I try not to get in an argument).
Thank you, eklastic. Yes, laws differ in different places. I am fortunate here in the USA that in public photography is unrestricted – mostly. I never take photos of youngsters unless I have explicit permission from a parent.
Sounds good 😊