Not all of my portraits are the result of requests. Sometimes I am able to convince friends to pose for me when I want to explore a specific idea or feeling. During these shoots, I spend much more time talking during the session, often reminding them of experiences they've had that will bring out the feeling I'm looking to capture, as well as directing them into poses. Here, I've convinced my friends to pose as modern day characters from the Wizard of Oz. This first picture is the heartbroken Tin Woman. During this part of the session, I was asking her to remember how under stress we might feel after a breakup and how that may cause us to put up a wall to the outside world. I think she accomplishes this with her tense hand raking through her hair signaling stress and the wall that she shows with the hard glare in her eyes.

In the second picture, I was asking her to bring out the "zen mother" aspect of Glinda the Good Witch. Again, she interprets this by striking a very receptive and open pose, yet maintaining a very calm, almost bemused expression.

Another one of my "tricks" to getting both a natural and a revealing shot is to have my subject close their eyes. I have them close their eyes, I'll count to three, and then to open their eyes looking into the camera. While they have their eyes closed, l usually take one or two shots. I find that people let their guard down when they close their eyes and give a less forced expression. Second, I'm much more likely to get a natural expression with lively eyes when they open them. The picture of a young girl illustrates the first part of my trick.

Eyes wide shut

She is beautiful, and very lively, and greatly enjoys acting in front of the camera. Most of the pictures from this session show her with a very forced expression. By telling her to close her eyes for a moment, I achieved this joyful shot which to me was a much better illustration of the childhood exuberance she was trying to indeed wanted to convey in her more "forced" expressions.

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A talented photographer, Erin also happens to be a Ph.D. Sociologist who has always enjoyed studying people.