One Useless Rebirth (BL novel)

C66. Xiao Bai (2)

"Redoing is also in vain, as you are on the wrong track." Xu Yinrong shook his head and said, "If the full marks are 100, then your photos only deserve 0. Last time you asked me how to improve disordered composition, and I suggested you to refer to some posters. You clearly missed my points."

He Bai was baffled and couldn't help leaning forward. His posture and expression revealed his desire for the answer, regardless of all that harsh criticism.

And that was exactly why Xu Yinrong liked him---not afraid of criticism, willing to learn and to hear others' opinions, not stubborn and able to improve when he found problems.

"Posters are all well-designed, which means the portraits on them are the results of deliberate cooperation of photographers and objects, but your photos..." Xu Yinrong slowed his tone unconsciously, and tapped the photos on his table, suggesting, "Your photos are still shot in a single-portrait way, and all of them are captured. Couldn't the captured group portraits photos be excellent? No, instead, there are a lot, but they're elusive. Most of the group portraits photos, especially the commercial ones, require the cooperation between photographer and object. So, Xiao He, you have to learn to instruct the model to follow your photographing track, rather than be obsessed with capturing models."

Well, that was very illuminating.

Staring at those ten photos on the table, He Bai recalled his experience in shooting portraits during this period. He got a sense of dawning comprehension.

Indeed, he had been used to shooting landscapes, so he always thought subconsciously about capturing, about how to one-sidedly follow others instead of cooperating. As nature would never cooperate with anyone, if you wanted a desirable landscape photography, you would have to wait there day and night, for the perfect moment that nature seldom gave.

When it came to portrait photography, he also gave models their heads and he captured them with camera, hardly asking them to cooperate with him.

...So he had been taking photos with the landscape pattern, which meant essentially there were no breakthrough and progress.

"Sir..." When he realized it, he got flurried.

Xu Yinrong raised his hand to stop him and took a photo collection from his book case. Sitting back, he presented this collection to He Bai and tapped the first photo, "This is my first group portraits photo. At that time, I was just an inexperienced journalist. I followed my senior to take pictures for the news about police escorting criminals to home. This photo was criticized harshly by him."

He Bai looked at it. It was a black-and-white photo with a low resolution. In the picture, the police were queuing up to get into the cars, looking loosened up and tired, without any sense of tension when they escorted criminals.

"The domestic conditions were not good at that time, so escorting criminals was a tiresome work. On their arrival, the police and criminals were all worn out." Xu Yinrong explained and turned to another page, "This one was shot by him, which was adopted by the newspaper."

It was also a blurred, black-and-white photo, but it adopted close-up photographing, only included one policeman and one criminal. In this photo, they were looking right at the camera. Although the policeman seemed tired, but he stood straight and used his strong, stable hands to hold the criminal, while the criminal was avoiding the camera and lowering his head, full of regret and shame.

"I captured this photo." Xu Yinrong turned to his photo to let He Bai look at it again. Then he turned back, "When took this photo, my senior asked that police men to pose as if he had subdued the criminal. As they knew this photo would be posted on newspaper, they both expressed their real feelings subconsciously. The policeman would like the readers to see justice, while the criminal was shameful for his guilt."