This is Lan from Shanghai. She was traveling with her boyfriend in Kyoto and was here to take photos for Instagram. I met her in Kiyomizu Temple. Her boyfriend was carrying quite a bit of camera gear including movie equipment.
She told me her name means orchid in Chinese. She is 24 and an office worker. Apparently she is actually wearing a cosplay costume - it is kind of a play on traditional Japanese wear.
They were both very friendly and pleasant and had no problem with me taking photos. It was a bright sunny day with a large number of tourists around. I moved her into some direct sunlight so as not to get any shadows on her face. I lined up her eye line with the detail on the temple building behind her.
I took 5 pictures at 2.8 to give a shallow depth of field but not too much as she was standing side-on. She was relaxed and looked straight to the lens. I liked this shot the best because of the way she is biting her lip. I ended up changing it to back and white because there was too much colour and it was distracting.
I enjoyed this encounter because they both seemed genuinely touched that a stranger would want to take pictures of her.
This picture is my 22nd submission in the 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/
This is also my 22nd submission to the Human Family Group, which can be found here:
www.flickr.com/groups/thehumanfamily/ 