Project : Activity

I’ve been quite taken by a section in the Michael Freeman ‘Photographing people’ book – yes I know I keep talking about it, but it’s excellent – about ‘Daily life’ There are several subsections to it, but the capture of people’s portraits as they go about their normal activities shows them as their ‘real selves’. This is what I’d like to try for in this project.
John Szarkowski ‘The Photographer’s Eye’ contains many images of this type mainly in chapters ‘The Frame’ and ‘Time’. They’re predominantly full length images, but still showing individuals at ease with the photographer and their surroundings / activities.
The recommended further reading book ‘Dexter, Emma and Weski, Thomas (Eds). (2003) Cruel and Tender: Photography and the real, Tate publishing’ is prohibitively expensive for me. I’ve ordered it at the local library, but it will be some time before it arrives. In the meantime I’ve been using a pdf document ‘teacher and group leaders’ kit’ for the exhibition which I downloaded from the Tate modern website, along with a video from vimeo.com, so I could identify the photographs and photographers who exhibited at the Tate.
One photograph that I really appreciated was Fasal Sheik’s ‘Abshiro Aden Mohammed, Woman’s Leader, Somali refugee camp, Dagahaley, Kenya 2000’ which he used in his book ‘A camel for the son’.

The directness of the woman’s gaze suits the ‘dead centre positioning in the frame and the lighting on such a dark skin really works – the image grabs and holds my attention. There’s so much strength in this woman which has been shown so well in this photograph.
Other portraits in the exhibition, by August Sanders portray the subjects in their surroundings:

Beggar, 1926

The situation of the beggar is dire, but his expression, poise and dress show him to be a man who is not accustomed to being in this position. The lighting is excellent, softening his features and allowing lots of detail to come through.
The picture tells a thousand words.

Farming Couple – Propriety and Harmony, 1912

Here’s a picture of a proud man and his wife.
There’s potentially an interesting story here – The husband is glad to show his position, but his wife obviously isn’t happy to pose. They’re both well groomed and dressed for the photograph, but I get the impression he’d be happier in a boiler-suit and she’d be in an apron.
I think he’s got the lighting wrong here – see how they’re both squinting and their facial features look too harsh. Still – it’s a good record shot and you’ve got to remember the equipment that they’d be using would have been very restrictive.