13. Haps

If I had thought that I had seen this winter's worst weather, I was sadly mistaken. Conditions worsened just as I was getting ready to embark on today's search for a stranger, with a harsh, cold wind blowing and a deluge of sleet and rain pounding on the roof. On top of that I was working on a severely limited time budget - I was planning to attend one friend's concert and another one's birthday party out of town. The concert was going to take place in the conservatoire, where - when I had studied there a long time ago - there was always somebody to be found taking a quick break in the hallways; I decided - rather than brave the storm - to go early and try my luck there.

When I arrived, Haps was already standing at the door to the concert hall. Since it was immediately clear that we both knew my Violist friend, I introduced myself and found that I had just met my friend's father. At that point I was not sure whether I should proceed: I was worried that this known connection between us might put him under pressure to talk to me when he normally might not. On the other hand, exploring the intricacies and nuances of human interaction is exactly what this project is about - and (on a more practical note) it would be rude of me to break off our conversation and look for somebody else to talk to. When I finally made up my mind and told Haps about Meet a Stranger a Day, he graciously agreed to become a part of it.

There was a certain amount of tension: we both wanted to secure good seats for the concert, which put a deadline on our talk; furthermore the hallway was noisy which led to a somewhat fragmented conversation. Even so, Haps came across as a good-natured, amicable personality - and when I offered to call the whole thing off, if he felt uncomfortable in any way, he declined. It was highly interesting to learn of his work counseling the state in ecological law, and I would have liked to find out more about what I perceived as his deep-seated passion for ecological matters.

What I need to learn:
It would probably have been worth finding a quieter spot - I need to take the time to ensure both I and my vis-à-vis are comfortable with the surroundings.

Haps: Thanks for participating - without you, today's page would probably be blank. Please let me know if there is an exhibition of your artwork!

Short respite from the torrential rain.

1. Alex Bär

Wow. What an experience! Inspired by Skull-a-day, I've been thinking about this project for a while now and today finally had the guts to actually get started. Each day starting today, I will walk up to a perfect stranger, have a conversation with (and about) them and take their portrait. While that sounds simple enough in principle, none of these things come easy to me. Walking up to a perfect stranger? And talking to them? Not something that the Swiss in general and I in particular are very good at... And taking somebody's portrait? Well, while I am very interested in photography, the kindest thing I could say about myself is that I dabble.

So what amazing luck that the very first person I walked up to turned out to be Alex Bär. Alex is an artist - which made my task that much easier, since he was unafraid of stepping into the metaphorical spotlight. I had originally planned to take a series of pictures of my subject, then get to know them better over a hot chocolate in a nearby café, and close with a second series. However, Alex had to catch a bus, so the process was somewhat compressed. I managed to take 12 Pictures, of which 3 are completely unuseable for technical reasons (bad lighting, closed eyes, motion blur). In the course of the remaining 9, I seem to have managed to make Alex feel more and more at ease, and so it is the very last one that I have selected for today's post. I'm still not too happy with the composition, the lighting and the overall quality (the picture is very grainy in high resolution), but I think I managed to capture the amiable depth of Alex's personality.

Things I need to learn:
Talk while taking pictures - I like to keep visual contact in a conversation, which gets a bit awkward when I'm trying to look through the camera at the same time.
Get a better eye for composition and lighting.

I would like to express my thanks to Alex, whose friendly cooperation helped me make the first step - and direct you all to his website, where you can see some of his beautiful paintings.

Please leave encouragement, tips and criticism in the comments,
thanks, h.