The Body

For the body unit I was interested in the psychological relationship between the sitter and ‘me’ (the photographer) where this intimate experience was to allow viewers to visually recognise and relate to ones emotional narrative. For this project to succeed I had to decide and find a model where I could represent what I believed to be their true personality and character. I decided to ask Reece the security guard who I always encountered at the entrance of UCA. I was intrigued by who he was, as whenever I left or arrived at UCA it was Reece’s face that I would always meet. He was a complete stranger to me but I felt I already new him from the perceptions I attached to his face and job role. Initially I wanted to represent Reece to be this threatening and even frightening individual who had an authoritative presence. My initial first impressions could not have been more wrong where I had completely misjudged his character.  As I got to know more about him I realised that actually the authoritative figure he portrays out to be is actually a mask behind what I felt was a vulnerable and isolated man. With this in mind I dramatically altered how I wanted to represent him and looked at photographers Irving Penn, Steve Pyke, Richard Learoyd and Etienne Carjat. These photographers approached and explored the stability of isolation and loneliness in their portraits and I was inspired by their technical and creative choices they made to support this. It was from this research that I decided upon making a portrait of just Reece without any props and to capture the emotion of ones vulnerability through likeness alone. To support this idea I employed the use of soft and even lighting with a shallow depth of field which I felt would effectively illustrate a direct focus onto his gentle temperament. I also setup I playlist of selected songs to not only help relax Reece into the studio but to also create a certain atmosphere and mood, where the slow melodies would help seal a more thoughtful and emotional expression.
On the shoot day I found it extremely difficult to capture the emotion I wanted from Reece and to break down the barrier of his strict disposition. On reflection there are several improvements I would have made, I would have firstly chosen a much longer lens as because there is very little shallow depth of field in my photographs from being so close. I would have also framed my composition so that Reece was slightly looking up at the camera enhancing the sense of fragility where the viewer seemingly has more power. From this I feel I have not successfully made the correct photographic choices to translate my ideas but understand how the precise attention to detail is vitally important in portraying my concept.