I just discovered this forum last week and had no idea that there were groups like this. I stumbled upon it from a link to Pook's postings from another totally random site and from there decided to read a bit of the posts here and thought some of the ideas were very enlightening. I tried some of them out on saturday 9-4 at the love parade in San Francisco and was truly amazed at the response I got. But first, a little background on me: Im not what you would call shy, most people would think of me as overly ****y and ostentatious. I don't have any trouble talking to girls and am usually asked to go to clubs with my friends who did have trouble for that reason. And, I like photography-- a lot. I used to shoot people in clubs and was greatly rewarded because I was never the one to use a zoom lens. I would get right up in the faces of the girls and make them pose for me, didn't matter a bit if their 320lb boyfriend was looking right at me. Most of this is because I don't think most people like 'stalker' photos from wack ass photographers who are too shy to go right up to a girl and get the photo you want. Sadly, I have never put those tactics together to actually date some of the girls I photograph. My new job takes up so much time that I couldn't shoot and became kind of depressed lately because I wasn't out there meeting new people and being myself. I planned to go to the Love Fest because it was going to be something different and I could go take pics and enjoy the music.
After reading some of the posts on this board, I stumbled upon a saying that struck me as one of the most important things anyone could ever say: "He who hesitates, masturbates." If theres something that could be taken from photography and applied to real life, that is it (minus the masturbation part.) So, I decided to combine the two talents and eliminate all traces of hesitation on saturday-- I had both batteries charged in my SLR and headed out to the show with a group of friends. At first, I was just getting some normal pics of the floats and things and doing the standard pro-photographer thing by getting shots of the hottest girls blah,blah,blah. Then, at about 2, I started to feel more confident and was struck at how responsive the girls were. Then after another half hour, I decided that I wanted MORE-- I left my friends and struck out by myself. Not only did I want the hottest girls, I wanted them to do things that they normally wouldn't do anywhere and I wanted to pick out a few of them and f%ck the crap out of them later. From this point, my world became a blur of the hottest girls you could ever imagine yielding to anything I wanted-- if they were walking away from me, I would spin them around into crazy positions and take their picture. If they were walking toward me, I would stop them, organize their whole group and take a few photos. Not more than a few seconds had elapsed before I was getting grabbed by girls and kissed while they demanded I get a picture of them like they had just seen me do with the other girls. A few tried to pull me aside to talk, but I was just so manic and spontaneous that literally had no time to ask for their number or name or whatever-- I was just lost in a world of "theres a hot one, GET HER!!" After an hour of this and several annoying lipstick/bitemarks all over my face and neck, I started to think "ok, this is too easy, Im not even trying and these girls are falling over themselves to obey me" so I became even MORE bold and began interrupting whatever they were doing to approach them. If a hot girl was on her cell, I would look right at her, grab her phone off her ear, hang it up, put in my pocket and make her pose for me. A few times I just picked the absolute hottest girls I could find and did that-- they were literally so shocked and surprised that they couldn't find anything to say and just yielded to whatever I wanted them to do. It was as if the walls and barriers that super hot girls normally put up just dissapeared into thin air. When I gave the phone back I would hear a 'wait-uh-um-who are u?' trailing off in the distance as I was instantly after the next hottie.
After a few hours of craziness, I slowed down, picked out some other new hot girls and just asked them out right there. I didn't feel like any pickup lines or developing conversation or anything and I still wasn't hesitating, so many of my conversations were like this:
me " hey, what are you doing after this?"
g " I don't know, why "
me "were going _____, come with us"
g " ok, that sounds fun"
me " whats your number, Ill call you at like 8 "
g "(number), whats yours, can I bring my friends with me"
me "sure" (kiss/hug/walk away)
Little did I know my poor little cell phone was about to blow up later that night from all the calls. I literally don't know which girl goes with which number-- and all of them were hot. It was a day of chaos with me smiling from ear to ear and capturing every exploit on camera. I don't live in SF, so I had to drive my friends who I eventually found back home. When I finally got back home and woke up, I called some other girl that I never talk to and screwed her silly. Afterwards, She too was like "WTF got into you?!"
There is one thing that I think I should mention. The festival is not a free for all orgy-- from my point of view it was, but there were also an unlimited number of guys watching from the sidelines doing nothing and other photographers scratching their heads and biting on my photo ops (that means shooting over my shoulder while I had framed this great shot). I don't mind the biting part as much as I mind the endless number of dudes just sitting there acting like chumps. WTF?!? you're going to just sit there with 500,000 18-30yr old girls in front of you partying and dancing?
I think that the reason this worked was a combination of factors:
1) I wasn't there to 'meet chics', I was there to be a very good pro photographer and get awesome pics
2) I was genuinely happy and excited the whole day, I wanted to be there and enjoy the sights and sounds
3) I never hesitated
4) I told the girls what was going to happen, I didn't ask "if it was ok if maybe sometime u and i could get a drink or something maybe if that was ok with you..." or any other bs like that
5) I was totally natural when I spoke and approached
Notice I didn't say anything about the girls, I didn't have time to even think if they were insecure or wonder if they wanted me or not. I don't remember even one second where I thought about whether I was too bold or forward or they might be shy or their boyfriend was near, etc. It didn't matter-- if you were a girl and you wanted attention from me, you got one shot or I was off to the next girl faster than you could bat your eyelashes at me.
I don't know if this inspires anyone to do anything different than what they are already doing, but some of the advise and guidelines given on this site serve to simplify the pages and pages of complicated direction you could spend a lifetime reading. And if you can stomp down your own shyness and combine it with some of the principles here, you're golden.
After reading some of the posts on this board, I stumbled upon a saying that struck me as one of the most important things anyone could ever say: "He who hesitates, masturbates." If theres something that could be taken from photography and applied to real life, that is it (minus the masturbation part.) So, I decided to combine the two talents and eliminate all traces of hesitation on saturday-- I had both batteries charged in my SLR and headed out to the show with a group of friends. At first, I was just getting some normal pics of the floats and things and doing the standard pro-photographer thing by getting shots of the hottest girls blah,blah,blah. Then, at about 2, I started to feel more confident and was struck at how responsive the girls were. Then after another half hour, I decided that I wanted MORE-- I left my friends and struck out by myself. Not only did I want the hottest girls, I wanted them to do things that they normally wouldn't do anywhere and I wanted to pick out a few of them and f%ck the crap out of them later. From this point, my world became a blur of the hottest girls you could ever imagine yielding to anything I wanted-- if they were walking away from me, I would spin them around into crazy positions and take their picture. If they were walking toward me, I would stop them, organize their whole group and take a few photos. Not more than a few seconds had elapsed before I was getting grabbed by girls and kissed while they demanded I get a picture of them like they had just seen me do with the other girls. A few tried to pull me aside to talk, but I was just so manic and spontaneous that literally had no time to ask for their number or name or whatever-- I was just lost in a world of "theres a hot one, GET HER!!" After an hour of this and several annoying lipstick/bitemarks all over my face and neck, I started to think "ok, this is too easy, Im not even trying and these girls are falling over themselves to obey me" so I became even MORE bold and began interrupting whatever they were doing to approach them. If a hot girl was on her cell, I would look right at her, grab her phone off her ear, hang it up, put in my pocket and make her pose for me. A few times I just picked the absolute hottest girls I could find and did that-- they were literally so shocked and surprised that they couldn't find anything to say and just yielded to whatever I wanted them to do. It was as if the walls and barriers that super hot girls normally put up just dissapeared into thin air. When I gave the phone back I would hear a 'wait-uh-um-who are u?' trailing off in the distance as I was instantly after the next hottie.
After a few hours of craziness, I slowed down, picked out some other new hot girls and just asked them out right there. I didn't feel like any pickup lines or developing conversation or anything and I still wasn't hesitating, so many of my conversations were like this:
me " hey, what are you doing after this?"
g " I don't know, why "
me "were going _____, come with us"
g " ok, that sounds fun"
me " whats your number, Ill call you at like 8 "
g "(number), whats yours, can I bring my friends with me"
me "sure" (kiss/hug/walk away)
Little did I know my poor little cell phone was about to blow up later that night from all the calls. I literally don't know which girl goes with which number-- and all of them were hot. It was a day of chaos with me smiling from ear to ear and capturing every exploit on camera. I don't live in SF, so I had to drive my friends who I eventually found back home. When I finally got back home and woke up, I called some other girl that I never talk to and screwed her silly. Afterwards, She too was like "WTF got into you?!"
There is one thing that I think I should mention. The festival is not a free for all orgy-- from my point of view it was, but there were also an unlimited number of guys watching from the sidelines doing nothing and other photographers scratching their heads and biting on my photo ops (that means shooting over my shoulder while I had framed this great shot). I don't mind the biting part as much as I mind the endless number of dudes just sitting there acting like chumps. WTF?!? you're going to just sit there with 500,000 18-30yr old girls in front of you partying and dancing?
I think that the reason this worked was a combination of factors:
1) I wasn't there to 'meet chics', I was there to be a very good pro photographer and get awesome pics
2) I was genuinely happy and excited the whole day, I wanted to be there and enjoy the sights and sounds
3) I never hesitated
4) I told the girls what was going to happen, I didn't ask "if it was ok if maybe sometime u and i could get a drink or something maybe if that was ok with you..." or any other bs like that
5) I was totally natural when I spoke and approached
Notice I didn't say anything about the girls, I didn't have time to even think if they were insecure or wonder if they wanted me or not. I don't remember even one second where I thought about whether I was too bold or forward or they might be shy or their boyfriend was near, etc. It didn't matter-- if you were a girl and you wanted attention from me, you got one shot or I was off to the next girl faster than you could bat your eyelashes at me.
I don't know if this inspires anyone to do anything different than what they are already doing, but some of the advise and guidelines given on this site serve to simplify the pages and pages of complicated direction you could spend a lifetime reading. And if you can stomp down your own shyness and combine it with some of the principles here, you're golden.
+1 rep