04.08 | The Detective Movie Poster

I had an idea and decided to give the photo-club members a little mirror therapy. You know the kind: suddenly you find yourself on the other side of the camera and realise that modelling is not just about posing and saying "cheeeese!" It was basically an accelerated psychology workshop — only with cameras in our hands.

Our brave photographers received three awkward — read: educational — assignments. First, we paired them up like animals boarding Noah's Ark, except this time they had to create a detective movie. Well, a detective movie poster. The twist?

Only the model knew what dark secret or deep emotion they were supposed to act out. The photographer had to capture the moment without having the slightest idea what the story was. Just imagine what the passers-by must have thought when a "model" was pretending to make a mysterious phone call while walking around with a flowerpot on their head.

Act two brought the great switch. This time the model revealed the title of the film — probably something along the lines of "Revenge of the Neighbour's Hamster" — and the photographer had to turn it into something memorable. Now they were allowed to direct like an obsessed filmmaker, although the model didn't always understand exactly what "look mysteriously into the corner as if the evidence were hiding there" was supposed to mean.

The third assignment, "choose a buddy", was the high point. Two people, one brain — or at least one title — and both had to experience life on both sides of the camera. The bonus challenge? One single click. As if we were shooting with an ancient film camera where every frame cost a fortune. Of course, the instruction "preferably just one click" proved about as effective as herding cats.

As for the lessons: photographers who like to stage and control everything suffered quite a bit during the first assignment. Adults, meanwhile, tend to overthink which image is the "really good" one, while the model would already have gone looking for a more comfortable chair. Children, on the other hand, take the whole thing much more lightly because they haven't yet learned to overcomplicate everything.

At the end of the day, I asked my colleagues to send me the posters they thought had turned out best for today's blog post. I'm curious to see which of all those "one-click" masterpieces will win the audience award. Stay tuned!

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.