Street portraits
In this part of my journey i will be moving into a more intimate situation with the strangers on the street. Hinting at the personality behind them and a closer look at their appearance.
In this part of my journal I will focus on the appearances of strangers and reveal some personal things about them through images of their physical appearance. For inspiration I have looked at the work of Diane Arbus, an American photographer during the 1950s through the 1960’s. Arbus was notorious for her ability to capture ‘craziness’ in her subject and brought about a wave of unusual photographs. She took to the streets of New York a lot to capture surreal people in ordinary places; people Diane Arbus called the ‘extremes’. For what I can see, Arbus could bring out the uniqueness of people through photography techniques, such as using flash in daylight, changing the angle of the subjects and exploring unusual perspectives. I like that in most of the photos the subject is making direct eye contact with the viewer, creating an intermit interaction between two strangers (the viewer and the subject). In my own photos I would like to use this connection between viewer and subject, as well as explore using flash in daylight. Another thing I love about arbus’ work is that she varies from up close detailed portraits to full body shots, it really explores the whole physically appearance of a person which is what I would like to do in my own work. Two of my favourite photos done by Arbus are the ones below. The one showing a teen couple shows them standing with a brick wall background, I like that not much about the two is revealed but the affectionate body language captured in the photos hints at some personal information. The other photo is called a girl in a swimsuit, showing a young girl stepping out of a pool; I love how the focus is brought on the girl’s face, with the background blurred out. Just like I mentioned before the eye contact she gives creates an intermit connection despite her being a stranger to the viewer. In my own work I will be focusing on creating an intermit moment as well as creating what I would put as “chaotic neutral” atmosphere in my images.
Diane Arbus' work
Another Brick in The Wall
These are my brick wall photos inspired by Diane Arbus. I focused on the faces of the strangers to conceal aspects of them to hide more of their identity, for example branded clothes, shopping bags etc. This is also the reason i chose a brick background, to reveal nothing of the situation, both the identity of the subject and location are mysteries. I wanted this mystery to represent the fact you pass strangers on the street everyday and you never know truly what they are like. Once i took the photos i put them into photoshop and changed them into black and white. To achieve a grungy and edgy look, that Arbus achieved in her work, i edited the HDR toning and applied it to each of the photos. I like these photos as the harsh detail of the tonal contrast stand out substantially, achieving an unusual appearance and an unsettling atmosphere. I feel i need to take further photos to capture maybe slight hints of a persons identity still in the style of Arbus.
Friends of Friends
To add to my street portraits i gathered friends of a friend, people who were strangers to me but close to someone i knew. The reason i chose these people was because i wanted to explore the identity of people that are in my life but not in an obvious way. With them being not complete strangers, i wanted to hint at their identity with their daily habits (smoking) or the clothes they wear etc. I took influence from Arbus, and tried to capture them in strange ways, through angle and through facial expressions.
Introduced as "Becca" 8/11/18 9:23
Facts i found out:
* Smokes
* Works in a bar
*Enjoys dancing
Introduced as "Lucas" 08/11/18 9:26
Facts i found out:
* Quit smoking for two weeks, until today.
* Job unknown
*Likes unknown
Introduced as "Zara" 08/11/18 9:31
Facts i found out:
* Does not smoke
* No job
* Bought her coat from next
Overall, i think the shoots were a success. I wanted to capture intimate connections between strangers in a plain environment to isolate the focus onto the detail of the subjects. Arbus showed the uniqueness of individuals through appearances, i achieved the same through putting my subjects next to the same background, increasing the contrast in appearances. The grungy edits of the images highlight the strangeness of each character, making the whole collection immersed into the urban theme and creates the chaotic neutral seen in Diane Arbus' work. My favourite image out of the collection is the group image, the unsettling closeness and eye contact creates an intimate atmosphere. To improve this shoot i could have explored more group images to diverse from the individual shots taken.
Robert Freeman
Robert Freeman, the photographer behind many famous images of the 60'S boy band 'The Beatles'. The above images were used for two albums produced by the musicians, the images featured the members in dramatic lighting with black and white monochrome. I love his repetitive nature of portraits, using either the same subject or same posing. His work fits my journey due to the expressive detail of individuals and dramatic use of light and contrast, the connection between viewer and subject is clear.
connection: The viewer and the stranger
The final stage of this section consists of a wide range of subjects, to confirm that variety of street identities have been explored. Below are the monochrome images of individuals with a plain brick wall behind them, bringing the focal point on to the subjects face. An improvement for this shoot would of been to explore more variety of poses to fully diverse the images.
This final section focuses on the double exposure shots combining the faces of the streets, inspired by the work of Robert Freeman. The purpose of this was to create montages of age, ethnicity, gender and attire, to create the identity of the street. At first i looked into repetition of a subject to create heavily contrasting creations, representing the edgy urban street style. The collection of images just above explore the range of street identities, preparing for the next section which will take a closer look into the lives of others.