I just got back from 3 weeks in Australia. During that time I really had an opportunity to photograph some beautiful people. In the past several months I've really been drawn to Manny's work and his style (who hasn't?), and I'm really finding that I love looking for that "moment" that makes a captivating portrait. It will be a long time before I acheive Manny's mastery of light, but in the meantime here are a few of my favorite portraits from the trip.
   
The first one is my father in law, one of the crustiest and most colorful characters I've ever met. The first time we went to Australia, in 2003, I could hardly understand him for all the colloquialisms he used.
This time my husband and I took a 1 week strawbale construction workshop. We are planning to move to Australia later this year and build a house out of strawbales, but that's a story for another thread. The other photos are of other workshop participants. Mr. Ha is one of 6 gentlemen that came to the workshop from South Korea- they are now building their National Trust building, the first strawbale structure in all of Korea. I literally could not take a bad picture of this man. His face was always filled with happiness and sincerity. It's amazing what a difference that makes. Chris is a 21 year old who is obviously very good looking, quite gentle in nature, and a lot of fun to photograph even if he is pretty shy.
Finally, my favorite shot of the entire trip:
Jang Go is also from South Korea. A huge joker with a great sense of humor, terrible English (actually, none of them spoke particularly fluently but that didn't stop everyone from becoming fast friends), a superb soccer player.... and a professional traditional drummer in Korea. Jang Go is his nick name, apparently it is the actual name for the drum he plays. Once he sits down behind his drum, he pours his soul into playing it. I got very lucky to have such beautiful light. The photo isn't perfect by any means, but I'm thrilled with it.
Thanks for the inspiration Manny.
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