When I took that photo class last summer, one of the assignments was "people/portraits." Because it was a summer session, I had about a week to shoot two rolls of film. Of people.
I am not a people person.
But you can get kind of chummy with people once you've shared a darkroom with them. When I saw this fellow student outside, reading, waiting for her mom to pick her up, I up and asked if I could take her photo. We were all pretty uncomfortable with the people/portraits assignment, so I think she understood. And didn't think I was creepy. I hope.
On the other hand, I think my creepiness points just doubled for posting her portrait on the internet without her permission. (If you are the subject of this portrait, and you see this, lemme know, and I'll hide your image so no one can see it.)
Date: July 2007
Where/What: outside the CVA at Brookdale Community College
Camera: Canon Rebel 2000
Film: T-Max 400
Listening to: Low Rider (War)
Thankful for: not having been in a major accident (YET)
5 comments:
are you familiar with the critical writings surrounding the idea of the "the gaze"?...
No.
among other things, it deals with the implications of looking and being looked at... specifically, the power differential that reflects, creates and/or reifies... and, since photography is, in a sense, concretized looking, there is a special relationship between it and "the gaze"...
my exposure to it was in a couple art theory classes... and a women's studies class... if you're curious, check out wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze ... and this site http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-“male-gaze”/ ...
all that aside, I would argue that there is a reason portraiture is difficult for you to do (I feeling I share)... that something about having a person be the subject matters... and that your subjects response to the camera (she does not look at it) indicates something as well... kind of like the inverse if that watershed moment when Manet "permits" his subject to look back at the viewer http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/olympia/ ...
I hope that makes some sort of sense... if it doesn't, my excuse is that I am working too much...
I'd like you to take down my image please.
I kinda know what you mean but I'm in a semester class and it's still the break neck speed of project assigned Wednesday, Contacts due Monday, 4 prints due next Wednesday. It's my favorite class so far though.
Great image, I really appreciate the tones and composition a lot more that I'm taking this class.
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