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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Photography Culture

People of Copenhagen: a Street Portrait Photography Project

Chris Gampat
No Comments
03/16/2016
3 Mins read

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All images by Debabrata Ray. Used with permission.

Debabrata Ray is based in Copenhagen and takes a particular liking to the people there. We’ve interviewed him before, and his newest project “People of Copenhagen” is loosely inspired by Humans of New York.

“While the purpose of the HONY project was different, for me I wanted to take portraits of the people of Copenhagen with a different purpose.” he tells the Phoblographer. To start, he thinks that the people there are incredibly good looking.

“…the average person is really fit, they have sharp features and they have an amazing dressing sense (even though 99% of the color they wear is Black)”

Combine these fantastic subjects with the fact that he loves to take portraits and shoot fashion, and you’ve given Deb a street-style photographer’s dream.

Phoblographer: How did you go about explaining your project to people and assuring them that you weren’t some sort of a stalker?

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Deb: Having a photo taken by a complete stranger – that too one whose not Scandinavian (pretty evident with me) can be quite disconcerting. However the people of Denmark in general i’ve observed, are really very friendly and broad minded. They’re very easy to approach (even though they might seem serious at first) and are very warm and friendly to speak to. I would just walk up to them and tell them that I am a photographer who is doing a project of shooting street portraits of strangers. I would tell them that in return for the picture I take, I will send them a full resolution picture which they could use as their portrait.

A few of those pictures ended up as FB DPs for some of the folks I took pictures of. I made sure I took each and everyone of their email addresses (the ones who would give them to me) and I sent them an edited copy of their photograph which I had taken. Some would reply back, however most wouldn’t bother. The other thing I made sure was that I kept the list of email addresses and the previous portraits I took in my memory card. So when I walked up to someone – I would show them the previous portraits I had taken, and the list of email addresses. This was key in breaking the trust barrier with these people who accepted to be a part of my project.

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In the end I think its a matter of conviction and mannerisms which matter as well. I would never ask a person twice who has once said no to being photographed, but then just wished them a nice afternoon / evening depending on the time of day I was shooting.

Phoblographer: What were you trying to capture in these people?

Deb: I was looking for interesting faces and / or clothes. Mostly interesting faces, faces with character that would appeal to me and want me to take their picture. I was looking for a certain aesthetic combination of the 3 factors I talked about in the 1st question in all of these people that I photographed. Although some of the pictures were purely based on the character of the subject’s faces.

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Debabrata Ray People of Copenhagen portrait
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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