Sharing Photos on Flickr

Flickr is a popular image hosting website for international users to share and embed personal photographs, and a successful online community. Its service is widely used by both amateur and professional photographers as well as photo researchers in order to host images that they embed in blogs, websites and social media. Flickr has a total of almost 100 million registered users who share about one million photos every day. Photos can be accessed from Flickr without the need to register an account but an account must be made to upload content onto their website. I’m an active member of the Flickr online community: Matt Hahnewald - Facing the World.

Until the 31st of December 2018, as shown below, the following Top Ten of my more than 2,000 uploaded international portrait photographs were rated on Flickr as the most interesting ones, according to the views, faves and comments from all my Flickr friends and followers (and Flickr's interestingness algorithm):

Today is December 30, 2018. This is the final blog entry in my photo blog on Blogger/Blogspot. It will be replaced by my regularly updated Flickr account: Matt Hahnewald - Facing the World. Thank you for following, until now and from now on.

Today is January 15, 2025. I have retired from photography. It was a good time. Thank you to everyone who has been interested in my portraits.

I am no longer actively managing the above-mentioned Flickr account Matt Hahnewald - Facing the World.

Doing a Background Check

Three components constitute an interesting street portrait: (a) an intriguing subject, (b) adequate lighting, and, last but not least, (c) the right background. Background matters! One thing that wrecks a street portrait is a cluttered background which will swallow up the subject and distract the viewer’s eye. It will also make the image look flat because the camera can’t capture the depth that the two eyes can. Therefore the photographer has to create sufficient visual depth by means of composition and subject/background separation. Most times, the right background for a strong, compelling image can be produced by slightly changing your perspective or blurring out a background.

There are two different types of background for street portraits, (i) meaningful and (ii) "meaningless" backgrounds.

(i) The meaningful background:

If one wants to photograph the subject in her or his (cultural, natural or work) environment make sure the background is equally as impressive as the subject, is part of the story, and adds value to the image. This is called an environmental portrait; the aperture could be f/5.6 or even higher (up to f/11 and more, depending on circumstances). If there is sky in the image, one want's to make sure the horizon does not cut through the head of the subject. Choosing the right camera position creates sufficient visual separation between the subject and the background which is essential to draw the viewer's eye to the subject.

Examples (i) - Environmental Portraits with Meaningful Background:

(ii) The "Meaningless" Background:

If the street portrait is about an interesting subject, then one can try to fully eliminate the background, making it about the subject and her or his facial features. There are three ways to do this:

• (a) You blur the existing (cluttered) background by opening up to f/3.2 or even more (up to f/1.2 if you have a good lens) thus creating a nice, creamy bokeh.
• (b1) You direct and position your subject in front of a clean, colourful or uniform structure (e.g. a brickwall, a painted wall, a green or flowering shrub, a wooden fence, a roller shutter).
• (b2) You improvise and use any impromptu backdrop (e.g. an umbrella, a curtain, any large piece of clothing).

Examples (iia) - Blurred Background:

Examples (iib1) - Homogeneous Background:

Examples (iib2) - Impromptu Backdrops:

Background matters; an intriguing subject alone is not enough for an interesting street portrait. A piece of advice: find an interesting background and wait patiently for something to happen... Have fun!

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Albums

Finding the Right Camera Angle

The camera angle marks the specific location at which the camera is placed to take a head shot or a half-length portrait photograph. Any portrait may be shot from several camera angles (main directions: eye level, low angle, high angle) which will influence the viewer’s perception of the subject (point of view). This might lead to different interpretations, emotions, fantasies, assumptions and speculations about the subject. A neutral shot or eye-level shot minimizes the psychological effects on the viewer.

A low-angle shot is taken from below the subject (the lens is below the subject’s eyes) and has the power to make the subject look taller, stronger, more important, or more powerful, or even threatening. It makes the viewer of the portrait photograph feel the opposite (e.g. smaller, more vulnerable) and simulates the view that a child (or a pet) would have. A second, but non-psychological reason for low-angle shots is the practical inclusion of large background objects (e.g. buildings, mountains) into environmental portraits.

A high-angle shot is a shot in which the camera is physically higher than the subject (the lens is above the subject’s eyes) and is looking down upon the subject. The high angle shot can make the subject look smaller, weaker, more dependent, more humble or even more vulnerable. It makes the viewer of the portrait photograph feel the opposite (e.g. grander, more important). A second, rather common but non-psychological reason for (subtle) high-angle shots are elderly photographers with knee problems or knee pain... 

"It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view."

(George Eliot: Middlemarch)

"Photography is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality."

(Alfred Stieglitz)

Eye level is the most common point of view, being a real-world angle that we are all used to. It shows subjects as we would expect to see them in real life. It is a fairly neutral shot that removes any hint of editorializing and instead simply presents the subject as it is in real-life.

In most cases, getting the lens to the eye level of the subject is the key for realistic headshots and half-length portraits - especially when photographing children...

High-res portrait photographs with complete exif data, geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Albums

Photographing Street Photographers

Street photography is photography conducted for art that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. "The (street) photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world picturesque..." (acc. to Susan Sontag). Framing and timing can be key aspects of the craft with the aim of some street photography being to create images at a decisive or poignant moment.

Street photography does focus on people and their behavior in public. This motivation entails having also to navigate or negotiate changing expectations and laws of privacy, security and property. In this respect the street photographer is similar to social documentary photographers or photojournalists who also work in public places, but with the aim of capturing newsworthy events.

There are two different types of street portraits, (i) interactive (aka "posed") street portraits, and (ii) so-called candid (aka "natural") street portraits (read more: Making Decisions in Tamil Nadu). Both types of street portraiture are interesting in my opinion and can produce awesome results. However, I prefer interactive street portraits.

Some ideas for shooting interactive street portraits:

• Find adequate background and good lighting.
• Be selective and be patient.
• Be yourself and be congruent.
• Get involved, build rapport and talk to people.
• Get consent for both (i) the image and (ii) the internet.
• Stay with the subject matter.
• Look for contrasts and contradictions.
• Take simple photographs.
• Vary views and angles.
• Get in closer.
• Make the subject feel comfortable.
• Reduce camera shake and shoot 1/250s or shorter.
• Shoot in aperture-priority mode or in manual mode.
• Use single-point auto focus and aim on the eye which is closest to you.
• Offer your email address and the URL of your website.

Anyway, street photographers who take candid photographs are fair game; candid photographs of them are the exceptions that proves my rule of taking interactive aka posed street portraits...

High-res portrait photographs with complete exif data, geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2016-03a Snapping Street Photographers

Having a Nose for Indian Jewelry

Nose jewelry is most commonly associated, since ancient times, with women from the Indian subcontinent. The ornaments are attached through a piercing (i) on the (left) side of the nostril, or (ii) through the nasal septum which separates the left and right nostrils. Nose piercing is the second most common variety of piercing after earlobe piercing.

(i) In India, like any other jewelry, nostril piercings and nose jewelry (e.g. studs, loops) are regarded as a mark of beauty and social standing as well as a Hindu's honor to Parvati, the goddess of marriage. The piercings are often an integral part of the Indian wedding jewelry. As is the case with many areas of life, size matters...

(ii) Septum piercing is popular in the countryside of the Indian subcontinent. In India such piercing is often called nathori and common with many Adivasi tribes. Generally, many types and sizes of jewelry and rings are worn in the septum piercing, such as a variety of ordinary metal rings (sometimes with attached gems), captive bead rings and circular or curved barbells. Septum piercings are often combined with nostril piercings, e.g. with many Adivasi tribes in Odisha.

High-res portrait photographs with exif data, geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2017-03a Crisscrossing Vibrant Gujarat
Flickr Album 2016-12d Stopping at Jeypore's Tribal Market
Flickr Album 2016-12c Browsing Koraput's Tribal Market
Flickr Album 2016-11b Absorbing Orissa's Ethnic Mosaic
Flickr Album 2016-11a Rocking the Rickshaw in Calcutta

”...and will as tenderly be led by th' nose; as asses are...”

(acc. to William Shakespeare: Othello)