For this shoot I visited a married couple who lived in their own house. This already is quite a contrast from people on my previous shoots. Not being limited to just one room also allowed for more locations for the portraits.
I used what I learnt from previous research to lead this shoot. From Michelle Sank’s work and subject research about people and their spaces, I have made sure to try and include items that suggest more about who they are. Both parts of the research supports my idea that your surroundings say more about you than just a portrait of yourself can so now I need to portray this in my work. I also kept to my idea of giving little instruction on how to pose to create more natural reaction to the camera.
For this shoot I decided to shoot with a 24-70mm lens. Using a 50mm on the last shoot was quite limiting, especially when I am in a small room so using this lens will be more versatile.
I started off by shooting Rachel alone on the sofa. I used a wider angle to capture the objects around her. She had a spare room that she had turned into a ‘craft room’. I thought this was a good place to shoot as it showed her hobbies. I did find this challenging as it was a smaller space. The window was right in front of her which did work well to highlight her. After we went back into the living room and asked her husband to be in it. It was a good chance to create more of a narrative with the image. She said a lot of the time he plays on his game and she often reads, this is what I wanted to show in the image.
I like this photograph as there is soft light on the subjects face. The rest of the image might be too dark though. I like that there is objects that suggests things about her, such as that she has cats.
This one works well because the desk makes it interesting to look at. I do not like the angle I took it at though, I think I was looking down on her too much. It was difficult to use many other angles though as I was surrounded by boxes and her belongings.
Also in these ones, analysing them now I think I should of got down to their level so I was not looking over them as much. I like that in the second image, she is looking into the camera but he is too engrossed in the game to look. It begins to tell a story.
Comparing my images to Michelle Sank’s work, there are some things that worked well and some things that were not as effective. On the image on the left, she is using an artificial light that creates a shadow behind. In my photos of the two of them in the living room, I used the lights they had in the room. It created shadow behind his head which I thought was quite distracting to the viewer. It was difficult though, as the natural light was quite low.
Overall this shoot was successful, although there is some photos that could benefit from being reshot.
Lucy Davis 