For my final section of the Portraiture brief, I needed to take a photograph of a stranger, or someone I’m unfamiliar with. This immediately worried me as I have trouble approaching people I don’t know at all which meant that walking up to someone in the street was virtually impossible for me. With this in mind I tried a different approach, during a brief trip home one week I asked around the road where my newly moved-into house is, I stumbled upon a neighbour carrying pieces of rubbish out of their house and down the road. I took the opportunity to ask for a few quick pictures and proceeded to then take my unfamiliar portraits…

 

I was inspired by the work of Rineke Dijkstra, in particular her beach portraits where the subjects are made uncomfortable because of the presence of a camera, as can be seen above, my first few images were the same. This can be seen by the slanted posture and the hands hidden away within the pockets – my subject wasn’t very keen on being photographed but I used this to my advantage. I asked him to stare into the camera, adding another layer of discomfort to the image.

Technical-wise I used my Nikon D3100 camera once again, this time with an ISO of 320 as the grey sky outside provided me with a soft light throughout all of my images. The physical discomfort of the individual eventually rose so much so that I needed something for him to concentrate on within the image. I asked him to hold some items of rubbish which he was taking out and instantly I knew I had the idea for my portrait.

I began by telling him to hold the rubbish in a way that made him a bit more comfortable in front of the camera, he held two large polystyrene blocks awkwardly by his side and in front of his leg, almost shielding himself from the camera’s view. I then took the above image, and asked him to keep the pose so I could get a profile photo in case the full length one wouldn’t work too well. Although I like the construction of the above shot, with the subject centered within the gate I felt like it was too impersonal to be used as a portrait. This is why I chose to move the camera closer and higher to the subject.

I feel like, even though some of the discomfort and awkwardness is gone from the image, the pose and props almost create a realism feel to the image. The man is well-focused (for once with my camera) and nicely framed with a suburban backdrop to match the clothing. I increased the saturation of the colours to eliminate the bland soft lighting and increased the shadows within the image to add depth. The facial expression isn’t cheerful, yet is kind of between discomfort and happiness and strikes a nice balance that resonates throughout the rest of the image.