I
would like to produce a set of photographs that focus on the way individuals
respond when their photograph is taken. I am interested in the way that people
pose and hold their selves when confronted with a camera. I have done one
previous set of photographs that looked into this same idea and I have wanted
to carry on with the series for a while now. I have been interested in how
people act when in front of the camera due to the vast differences I have
noticed from person to person and through other photographers work. The book
would be a collection of portraits where I intend to show each persons
individuality while keeping the set up and crop of the image uniform to avoid
any misleading change throughout them. This is to show that we are all human
but that we are unique as ourselves. Using Richard Avedon and other portrait photographer’s
books will help me to not only take better photographs but also to set out my
book in a more effective way.
I will
use a Rollei Flex medium format camera that is the same as Avedon used to
create his portraits using. In previous shoots similar to this one I have used
both to ensure I have a back up set of images.
I will
adopt a similar technique to the photographer Richard Avedon, where he chose
not to speak to all of his models in order to manipulate them into showing
certain emotions. I will not speak much to the models except when. The book
will also incorporate the fashion of today by me targeting what I consider
people with the latest fashion where possible.
I will
be shooting both in the studio and out on the streets of Manchester, mostly in
the studio, wherever or whenever I see an interesting person I will take their
photograph. A white background will help me to take away any irrelevant information
that will distract the viewer, I want the emotion to be seen in the persons
face and body language and having too much irrelevant information would hinder
this.
My
target audience will be quite vast due to the context of the photographs; the
emotion that I hope to capture in the photographs will appeal to many ages
within the art world.
The
following two photographs are from a previous set of images that I produced for
a similar brief. They are a set of 24 photographs that looked into how people
of different ages look and act when confronted with a camera. I used the same
technique as Avedon, not speaking to the person other than asking them if I can
take their photograph. I want to further develop my portraiture in terms of
keeping a consistent style and crop to all of the photographs where possible.
There
are several books that I know of which will help me get ideas of how to lay my
book out in the most suitable fashion. I will consider size, text, font,
layout, paper etc. I have an idea to keep all of the photographs in the book
the same size, again fitting in with the equality theme throughout, showing that
each person is the same in many ways but different in others. I will look at
many books to get a feeling of how I want mine to be set out, some books/
journals that I know will be useful are as follows: Evidence 1944-1994 (Richard
Avedon), Art Photography Now (Susan Bright), Dazed & Confused Magazine.
