Straight Faced

Straight Faced, originally uploaded by I Am Martin!.

Arrived back home from the south of France last week. Avignon to be precise.

I'd never been to Avignon before but had heard many good things about the city. It has an important past in terms of religion as 'The Papacy ', home of the Pope was based there for 80 or so years. If my memory serves me correct, 7 different Popes served as leaders of the Catholic faith over this 80 year period.

Avignon is also twinned with my home town, Colchester. Which made the holiday even more worthwhile! (despite not seeing any signs pointing it out, unlike Colchester.)

We stayed here... http://www.autourdupetitparadis.com/ Highly reccommed it. The owners are such brilliant people and would make your trip x10 better.

Anyway, the gentleman in my photograph.. A homeless man who posed for my girlfriend whilst she was looking through her pictures. Up to that second I was so frustrated with the lack of photography I had done/attempted whils being away. I knew it was my chance to get a decent image. So, in mid-pose he turned and looked at me to see me pull my DSLR out of my satchel and looked horrified as what turned from a comical pose turned into my favoutie portrait.

The lighting was perfect, background was rugged and the texture of his skin and beard was a photographers dream.

I took the image, gave him one of my 'business' cards on, shook hands and carried on walking. Amongst the commotion of taking the photograph I realised that he had told me his name. I couldn't remember it. I was gutted because he seemed quite happy that I had taken his photo.

My favourite thing about this image, is the lack of post processing needed. Cropped the right hand side, a touch of vignetting around the edges and slightly sharpened his face. Oh, and lightened his eyes a little. The backdrop was perfect and suited his roughness entirely.