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Wednesday 14 November 2012

My first photos

This photo was inspired by the ruthless invasion of privacy by the media whenever something sensational happens to a person. The headline about a rape victim wasn't deliberately chosen to be in the shot, but really enhances the sense of the uncomfortable viewing of a sensitive subject, especially as it's placed right next to an article about a pulp reality TV show.

 I was given a camera and walked around school with a friend taking pictures to look as if we had been stalking people. Here are some of the results:

I really like this particular photo because of the reflections in the glass obscuring the person behind it. We experimented with revealing the photographer in the reflection but weren't able to get any effective results. I want to set up a photo shoot involving strategically placed reflective surfaces in order to get a good photo of both the subject and the photographer.


 Our goal was to make the images seem as if they were taken without the subject knowing. We did this by putting obstacles between the camera and the person in shot and taking the photos from a distance. For some of the photos we asked peole to pose, but a few are of genuinely unsuspecting people. I'd quite like to take this further by selecting a few photos to draw onto and create borders like Miroslav Tichý did with his favourite photos.
The black and white photos above were taken without the man knowing. Indi pretended to pose for pictures while standing in front of him so that I could take pictures facing his direction without him being suspicious. I decided to keep Indi in the shots as a clue to how the pictures were taken, as well as to keep the sense of amateur photography. With the pictures seeming spontaneous and surreptitiously taken, the sense that there is no relationship between the subject and the photographer is maintained and it looks like more of a violation of the subject's privacy. 
The set of images below were posed by myself, Indi, and someone we met (and gotten permission to photograph) in the school library. I prefer the images in which most of the person's body and face are obscured because it creates an air of mystery about the picture. The viewer is more likely to question who this person is and why they're being photographed if they can't see all of them. 





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