Image 1 - I was initially attracted to this man by his wonderful wrinkled face, but soon decided that it was essential to also capture something of his environment. The secondary subjects in the background were included to provide balance for the off-centre main subject. I used a 20-35mm wide-angle zoom and closed in to about three feet of the subject. The aperture was chosen to give sufficient depth of field for a sharp main subject while allowing the background to go soft. This lifts the subject out of his surroundings while still allowing the environment to be appreciated. On-camera fill-in flash was set 0.7 stops below balance to fill shadows without flattening the texture of the skin.
The real difficulty with shots of this nature is getting close to subjects without offending them or disturbing their environment and circumstances by one\\\'s presence. It is usually necessary to devote quite a bit of time to conversation, or some other form of communication or simple human interaction, before producing a camera. It is also necessary to be comfortable approaching people from very different cultures with whom not a word of spoken language is shared.