Shoot 7 - Portraits; Working with Keelor & Mike

"You don't take a Photograph, you make it." - Ansel Adams

As part of my Assignment 2 Research Blog, I have produced a number of shoots in order to get a sense of direction for my Assignment. My genre I chose to study was Portraiture resulting in photographic outcomes from both a studio and outdoor location.

For my final set of photographs I wanted to push myself, yet stick to what I feel I’m strongest at which is shooting outdoors on Location to get the best possible outcomes I can.

During my group lecture, there was a lot of discussion over the above photograph taken by Julia Margret Cameron. Everybody had a different version and saw different Narrative when viewing this photograph, which I’d used as research for inspiration on a wedding shoot as part of my Research Blog.  Although this photograph is not a Wedding Photograph by any means I found it very inspirational as I appreciated the composition, the flowers reminded me of a wedding bouquet and in my head, I see them as a bouquet. The four subjects in the photograph I see as the bride, groom and parents. Of course this was only my imagination in my head, clearly the subjects in this particular photograph are females, however it is photographs like this from almost a century ago that can still inspire today.

What was interesting to hear, was that most people saw this photograph and thought of a funeral set up portraying a death. You can clearly see the emotion in the photograph, as the subjects look sad, their eyes all glancing in a different location gives of the impression that they feel uncomfortable, almost lost. Maybe they have lost someone? Maybe they are sad? It makes me wonder about the photographer’s intentions and what she was trying to capture. This is what I love about photography, the not knowing; when I look at this photograph I see a personal story, just like everybody else will create their own narrative.