1. The Stranger Portrait
This area of the brief was difficult for me; strangers are very unwilling to spend a great deal of time around the camera of someone they do not know and so it is difficult to compose an interesting, natural picture. Here I have photographed a friend of a friend, someone I am not familiar with. The subject chose to smile and I chose to go with this as strangers put on a face and that says something in itself. I darkened the background to remove distractions but also to bring focus to the stranger; the juxtaposition of the darkness and the smile bring a metaphoric quality to the image. Moreover, in the style of many of the photographers that I researched, I have chosen to make the portrait black and white to remove further distractions.
2. The Familiar Portrait
Photographing friends is strange as they are torn between who they want to be in front of a camera and who they want to be in front of you. This particular image is lighter and more relaxed than my others, inspired by the work of Bresson and Richard Avedon, featuring more white than black tones and a lighter tone.
3. The Self Portrait
For my self-portrait, I had those around me input into direction, making for some in-between or awkward expressions. This particular image is inspired both by Vermeer and Penn, both of whom I have noted in my research. It has been noted that I bear a small resemblance to ‘the girl in the turban’ and I wanted to experiment with recreating this, however where Vermeer celebrates culture with bright colour, I chose to swap this for Penn’s focused dark black and white style.