Portrait Project

The purpose of the Portrait Project was to use visual cues to challenge our assumptions of our photo's subjects. In this case, we were assigned to step out of our comfort zone and photograph (in my case) one individual we did not personally know, and another that we do personally know a certain number of times.

Using common visual cues, most should be able to note the uncomfortable looks that the photo subjects give off. Whether a viewer is considering the environment of the photos, in this instance we consider a lobby and outside an elevator, or their posture, clothes, and behavior, they make a judgment on whether the photographer seems to be acquainted with them.

My Flickr page contains all the photos in the project, but the final contact sheet used is seen on the left. I arranged each picture, four for each individual, to line up more symmetrically for the viewer to compare them. In my presentation to our photo journalism class, we found that viewers of the photos were split on their judgment.

The truth of the photos here are that the man outside the elevator is my roommate, while the girl in the lobby I am not acquainted with. I instructed my roommate to have his backpack with him and look as though he was waiting for the elevator in order to go to campus. By doing so and framing the photographs in an "impromptu" manner, letting him naturally look uncomfortable (as he surely was), the two subjects looked similar. Therefore, my project demonstrates that these visual cues may be misleading when the photographer chooses to mislead, as I did.