I wanted to get out to the San Diego Gay Pride Parade this year because I’d missed it the past few years, and really wanted to meet people and make portraits of them. There’s a bit of a challenge with approaching complete strangers and asking to take their photo, but after a bit of practice it gets easier. Sometimes I get denied, and I respect that, but most of the time I’m able to achieve what I’m aiming for.

I learned from a documentary by Louis Theroux documentary on Hypnosis where he learns from a hypnosis teacher on how to pick up women (sounds weird, but stay with me) by using a simple formula called CIQ. What CIQ stands for is Compliment, Introduce, Question. The way that I’ve translated this in terms of photographing strangers is if I see someone who has style I approach them and compliment something they’re wearing followed with introducing myself and telling them about the portrait project that I am working on, and then I ask if they’d be interested in having their portrait taken.

I made these photographs with a Canon AE-1P on Portra 400 film. To see the rest of the set click here.