"Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is the one they would like to show to the world... very so often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe." - IRVING PENN
Concentration Statement
My goal for this concentration was to challenge myself by tapping into an avenue of photography that I am not comfortable with, taking portraits. Pursuing this genre of Photography quickly developed into a way of implementing Photo Collage to tell and develop a story through photography and digital media. That said, my family has been through many ups and downs this past year; I chose to focus primarily on telling my family’s story. I used several symbols and methods in my work to unify the portraits and help our story move along. A primary symbol I used was old, wrinkled paper, which I overlaid on many of my pieces, to represent the timelessness and wisdom of life. The old paper served to unify my concentration, and show the importance of the past in our narratives. To show happiness and the love that has drawn my family closer together, I used the emotive quality of color illustrating the little bits of joy and happiness that shine through despite tough times. I arranged my concentration from black and white to color, to show the progression of our emotions as we learned to deal with the trails in our lives, slowly finding happiness. I also combined portraits with symbolic imagery from nature, primarily fire and trees. Fire has a way of refining precious things, making them more pure. In the same way the negative things we face as well as the suffering we endure, refine us, making us more empatheticpeople. I used trees to signify strength and growth. Some trees have lived hundreds of years, surviving floods, fires, etc. and still grow tall and strong. In the same way my family and I are survivors. Another chapter I focused on was, my sister. This year she had to have open heart surgery. I documented the ups and downs of her recovery, evidenced in images. Her experience had a big impact on our lives and has shaped our family's history.