Portraiture

For my portraits I had collage students sit down on a chair while I had the shutter open.  After about 20 seconds I put a lens cap over the lens and asked them to switch.  The student moved their chair sideways and looked at the wall rather than the camera.  I then uncovered the lens cap for about 20 seconds and there was my shot.  I did not go into this project knowing exactly how it was going to turn out or with a definite idea of what I was trying to communicate.  I did know that the photos were going to have a more painted look to them, with the shutter open it's almost impossible to have a still image. I knew that there were going to be two of the same person on each image. I knew I was going to photograph college students.

After starting the project I noticed more things in my photographs.  The person looking at the wall on almost every image was more blurry than when they were looking at the camera.  The pictures were not turing out light enough, when I would open the shutter for too long the background was too light, when  I shortened the amount of time that the shutter was open the student would be too dark.  I went with an in-between time, 20 seconds, this made the background dark enough to were I knew I could edit it to make it darker and the subject light enough so I could make them lighter.

I chose to do my portraits like this because I have never seen anything like this before.  I have seen mug shots that are similar with one picture looking at the camera and one looking sideways, like mine.  Mine are different though, those were two separate pictures, the pictures I took of each person were one picture.  I think it is really cool that the people are blurry in these portraits, I think it adds mystery to the photo because you can't see all the details.  It also individualizes each person, each picture is shot the same yet, because each person moved differently in the pictures, there is something unique about each of the portraits.