A couple weeks ago I shot some portraits with Vincent, my dad, who was going to be one of my South Africans living in Britain. The portraits aren’t particularly interesting and were never intended to be the final product, just a starting point onto which I will layer ideas for the next shoot. The plan was to get the format for my portraits finalised with him, then start arranging shoots/interviews with my other subjects. Since then I’ve hit a bit of a wall mentally, which is why I haven’t posted these up already. My problem is basically the time constraints on this mini-project, so I had to decide to either make very simple portraits with lots of subjects or narrow down my subjects in order to play more with the portrait. I have now decided on the latter and have changed the project to focus simply on my immediate family, all of whom have differing relationships with both South Africa and Britain. These portraits will be a response to the Griqualand photographs I found at the National Archives. This blog is supposed to document the entirety of my process, so despite my not liking them, here are a few of the results of that initial shoot (apologies about the slightly off-key colours):
Vincent at the park
Vincent at the park 2
Vincent at the park 3
Vincentat the park 4
What is the state of the mental wall that you have reached? Is it conceptual or aesthetic?
The first two I really like, and I can’t decided between which of the two I like more. The others don’t really do much for me, perhaps it’s the background when comparing them to your found Griqualand images as a response. You mentioned that you liked the confidence of the subjects and this certainly comes across in your images.
Although as portraits they work wonderfully, in the context of the project I’m struggling to find a strong (albeit there is one) link. As I said, he certainly comes across as confident, but it doesn’t really tell me much about him. Perhaps you should play around with the setting of the photographs or the clothes that he is wearing. Getting your father to put on his best suit, and then placing him in an environment along with possessions that have a strong meaning/connection to him might suffice or act as a starting point. I feel that this might say a little more about him and perhaps convey a sense of power in your subject if he were photographed within his “habitat”.
As with Bromberg’s images of self portraits of inmates at the hospital in Cuba, him handing over the shutter release was his way of giving his subjects a sense of power and control over the way they are presented (as you commented). My train of thought is that by letting your father choose his clothes and setting you’re letting him in some ways speak for himself (ala portait of Dion) whilst you still retain an element of power in the act of taking the photograph.
Thanks for commenting Constantin, the wall was mental as well as aesthetic! But I’m feeling good about it now. The approach I have settled on is quite a bit looser than what I was originally planning and is an extension of the kind of thinking you suggested. The project will now be based around the 3 members of my immediate family, focusing on their relationships with South Africa, Ill be making portraits with them as well as photographing objects of theirs (which they will have given me) that reflect their relationships with SA. On top of this I will be including the archive photographs (re-photographed) and tying it all together with text from my interviews. So I’m basically playing with that power balance by allowing/encouraging them to influence their representation in a number of different ways: through objects, interviews and collaboration in portraiture. I’m hoping those larger things I want to deal with in the history of Britain/SA will seep through from my own personal history, instead of creating a didactic history lesson type of project.
be good on his wiki page