In preparation for the Portrait brief we were set the task to photograph portraits of strangers. Approaching strangers and asking if you can take a photograph of them is not as easy as it seems, but I think that once you break the barrier it becomes much easier. Here are a few photos that I took today. You will notice that they are all male – I think that this is because they are easier to approach for this kind of task.

Final Idea

This triptych resembles still life because of the objects within the images. However, the careful arrangement of the objects can be open to interpretation; I believe that the shapes and sizes of the stones represent a head and a body and the flower as a face; the darker stone as a hat along with the smaller stones on top. This contrasts with the initial idea of “still life” because the objects appear visually as life-like figures (particularly in the last image).

The original image is the one on left (above) and the top image (below), I chose to use the same images throughout because I wanted to show the image from a different perspective. Through the use of mirror imagery, the central image creates life, it visually implies that the “objects” are leaning in towards each other. The image on the far right also portrays repetition, I think that the alignment of the objects influence the life-like features that the objects portray.

Victoria Ivanova

Victoria Ivanova’s interest in giving a static object a character is where my interpretations came from. I came across one of her photographs containing a pear which looked like it had emotions. I found this extremely clever and also quite funny. As I looked into her work further, I noticed that she had put together a series of pear photographs.

In order to improve my idea, I could have added in other still life objects to make the photograph come to life and tell a story, similar to what Ivanova does. I also think that I could have expanded on my idea by changing the background and the lighting, this would have potentially given the object(s) more character and meaning.