And now its starting to get a little crunchy. This coming week we have to present some hard copy...prints that is...to show how the assignment is shaping up. Last week I managed two more shooting sessions and unfortunately the next three are not going to happen before tomorrow. So I have been working with what I have now.
Fortunately one of the sessions produced - at last! - what I think may be a workable image in terms of the final selection. I certainly hope so as its going to be hard to get another full round of sessions with all subjects in time for the submission dates so really I have to settle now on what I want to show and of course that means deciding primarily on what I'm trying to say.
So far I've been fiddling around the idea of how these 'professionals' interact with the context in which they normally operate...in most cases at a desk. Visually this isn't that dynamic (how can it be) but more importantly it makes in tough to engender a sense of their own embodied image of themselves and is also distracting and fussy in terms of a true portrait of an individual. In this most recent session I moved the subject, a Dance Centre Director, into the deserted auditorium he presides over and placed him, a little uncomfortably for him I think, right in the centre of it. By luck rather than judgment (although I am making some progress with the technical stuff) I got the lighting right - an even flash light that the darkness around the subject swallowed up - and focussed in on the full figure. The combination of the various elements works for me at least and I feel confident enough in the outcome to want to try and work with my other subjects in the same manner.
This will - I hope - say more about the aspect of vulnerability that those with high profile 'presence' exhibit in their professional capacity...something I'm acutely conscious of as I divest myself of those trappings as well produce a coherent set of visually striking images that I can stand behind.
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