For this shoot I was inspired by Michelle Sank’s work. This is still initial stages of my work so I used my house mate as my model. So far I have shot in interior locations, so I am going to try exterior images. Sank’s ‘Teenagers Belfast’ project consists of portraits taken outside and this is what made me intrigued to try this.
I used our house as the location as it was familiar space for the subject. I wanted to make the subject feel comfortable in order to create a natural expression.
Michelle Sank was my main visual inspiration for this shoot. In most of her photos the subject looks into the camera, creating this connection between them and the viewer. They are posed differently and this makes me think Sank allowed them to pose how they wanted. Because of this I gave very little instruction to the model in order to have the similar natural affect. The difference in Sank’s work is colour. The colour in her portraits really stands out and grabs my attention. It was an overcast day when I was shooting, my model wore dark colours and nothing in the surrounding was very colourful. This created dull images in comparison. It could be seen as more effective though, maybe the gloomy skies could represent the subject mood.
There was many influences from research in this shoot. My theoretical research about relationship between viewer and subject showed how important that relationship is on the mood of the image. This is still early stages so I experimented with a different idea. Normally I am friendly towards the subject but this time I was a little more reserved. She lived in the house so she already had this connection with the place, so I didn’t give much instruction or talk very much. Already, I can see this made a difference. She acted a little more awkward and more reserved towards the camera. This leads me to my research on Rineke Dijkstra. I took my time waiting for more natural moments like she did. This worked in some images but in most just made her feel more awkward and this wasn’t really the atmosphere I was aiming for in my work.
Lucy Davis 