Project 52: Portrait of a Stranger

The second assignment for Project 52 was to take a portrait of a stranger. Considering that I’m not all that keen on taking portraits in general and I’m a true introvert, this wasn’t an assignment that I was looking forward to. Luckily I had a business trip to Helsinki with some waiting time scheduled at Helsinki-Vantaa airport on the way home.

I knew that the airport would offer me many strangers and having some extra time would mean that I couldn’t really avoid talking to someone and getting their permission to photograph them. So spotting a little labrador puppy at the airport seemed like a real blessing since now, as a retriever enthusiast, I had a good reason to start talking to the people with the puppy. Turns out the breeder was taking the puppy to his new home in Czech Republic, so the portrait has the breeder, puppy, and busy airport in the background.

My final selection is this one:

In fact, it was taken with a composition that I had previsualized while walking around the terminal, so I’m glad it was also the best photograph. The following to out-takes aren’t as strong. In both the sharpness of the puppy isn’t quite good enough and either the crop or contact with the subject is laking. But all in all, I’m satisfied with what I got out this assignment, even though approaching only one stranger for a photograph almost feels like cheating ;)