Stratford Road Project (100 Strangers)

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I've been working on this project for just over a month now and thought it should interest people here.

The Stratford Road Project is based on other 100 Strangers projects in which people make it their aim to take 100 portraits of strangers and tell their story. I decided to make mine less arbitrary and give it some value by focusing on one road in Birmingham to create a social document of who uses it today.

Here's a blurb from the blog;
This photo-blog is about people who can be found on the Stratford Road in Birmingham. This arterial road runs from near the city centre to the M42 motorway and eventually Stratford-Upon-Avon. I plan to take one-hundred portraits of people between Sparkbrook and Shirley and find out a little bit about who they are.

Read the blog here: http://stratfordroadproject.wordpress.com (click for bigger)



Here are a few of my favourites so far:


415 - Aziz by Rob Gilbert, on Flickr


591 - Kelly by Rob Gilbert, on Flickr


1551 - Sainab by Rob Gilbert, on Flickr


567 - Arif by Rob Gilbert, on Flickr

Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertgilbert86/sets/72157627007723579/with/5909650874/
 
Soldato
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My only criticism of the last one, Arif, would be that with the crop and position of his shoulders, it almost looks like he is taking a self-portrait.

Out of context and if it was a younger person, that's for sure what I'd be thinking.
 
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I love your little project, very interesting. I loved reading about the people's background and putting a name, face and story together. Great idea...although I would never have the guts to do it myself.
 
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Thanks guys, glad you're liking these. I'm a bit worried they're all going to become very similar though...

Nexus I can see what you're saying about Arif, the composition is a bit off, I've shot with too wide an aperture and had it on +1/2ev for some reason. I think this is because when talking with the person I sometimes forget most of the technical stuff and only make sure I get the eye in focus (and even fail on that sometimes). I only get 2 or 3 shots of each person and I may never see them again so I take what I get. The wrong settings actually work for me though, f4 gets a ton of detail in focus but still isolates the subject from his background, and the composition is a little bit quirky rather than the usual thirds-based shots.
 
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Some really great portraits. I hope you manage to find some funding locally to either have these published in a book or exhibited as an exhibition. Great work.
 
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Cheers guys, I've been out today so should post up a few more tomorrow.

Andrew, that quote is from August! I did about 10 weeks worth in the summer and stopped after 52 people - I just fancied a break and thought it was getting a little 'samey'. I did however plan to restart in the winter to give a bit of variation and schools/colleges would also be back in term. Now I'm trying to be a bit more picky with my subjects and fill in the gaps in terms of age, gender and race. This and fewer hours of daylight are making things a little more difficult but it's really just a question of putting the time in.

I'm shooting on a D700 with a 50mm f1.4 AF @ f2.8. I toyed with a few lenses/techniques at the start but wanted a consistent set so it's the above in a very similar composition each time. The downside to the 50mm is I'm only about 0.5m away from people when shooting and if you look carefully you can see many examples of people backing off!

How are you by the way Andrew? I'm surprised you're finding the EXIF masked, when I save an image from the blog it's in there and the data should be on flickr too.

Andy, I do plan to promote the project whilst it's still in progress so fingers crossed for what that throws up. Any advice on who/what/where to contact?
 
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