User:LUCA/what.how.why

What 10 series of portrait photos of my friends and family.The photos are made on a polaroid and shot on a vertical scale. Every series consists of around 20 portrait pictures of one person. In every series, the portraits have the same person/human face, upper body, and black background. But every photo distinguishes oneself by the extremely diverse use of the material and body language; That means that the person is looking completely different in every single photo. We see this person wearing different clothing or fabric materials. Also, the use of makeup and different hairstyles or even the use of wigs is strongly creating the different looks we are seeing in every single picture. Next to that, there is the use of body language; in every portrait, the person uses his/her face differently, sometimes it shows a feeling we might recognize but other times it shows the face more abstractly. For example in the series with my sister there is one photo where I gave her a golden face and a golden suit, she became a gold figure. Therefore not recognizable as a person. In one other photo, I gave her a grey wig and glasses and a very Englisch looking outfit, here she was looking more like someone we may know or at least looks like a person. The collection of series also drifted between different kinds of photo styles. Where one portrait may look like a natural photo made casually on the streets as if it would be street photography, The other may look like an extremely artificial constructed photo as if it would be fashion photography. In a way, the series of portraits shows a completely different collage of material and body use.

How For one week, every single day I invited one family member or close friend to my parent’s house. I asked the person that I would photograph to bring clothing and little material things that were wearable but also totally not wearable like for instance a sculpture or a bottle of water. They could bring whatever they wanted but they had to be able to explain why they thought it should be in the picture. Next to those materials consisting; clothing, makeup, and other things I collected all the dress-up stuff I used to play with as a child, I gathered some clothing, jewelry, and makeup from my mother, father, and my departed grandmother. All that stuff I drop in the smallest room of my parents' home. The room was darkened by putting the curtains down and hanging a black fabric to the wall. I had two softboxes lamps Nothing was planned in terms of the kind of portraits we would make exactly. There were no inspiring images we were going to recreate. But what we did do is talk. We talked about what the person through other people saw when they would look at him or her. What kind of person other people may think he or she would be or could be. Then we talked about what the person himself or herself thought of their identity and what another identity this person could identify with or could not identify with. After talking and drinking tea we went to the smallest room and started taking photos. The person how I would photograph would be there as the canvas and I would try to create different images with there face and body. Therefore my family and friends were kind of my dolls, I could play along with there "looks" and then they started playing with the given character.

Why I made this to explore the different faces one may have or could have. To play with the idea of how you think you may look like to others and who you think you are. To explore different characters one may possess while never being conscious of it. To experience a playful day of creating unknown characters and therefore talk about different kinds of people. By talking about different kinds of people we also start talking about who we are or at least who we think we are. By talking about beliefs of one’s identity one may be surprised by the story we so firmly hold on to and may start asking ourselves if this story is made by us or someone/something outside. Also, we could start looking at the story of ourselves and start wondering if there are more possibilities for this story. I also made this series to be able to create a big variety of portraits with little time and little material. To see what we would create with a clear frame of workstyle, with that I mean that we knew we were only going to make portraits and would only have the material that was there in that room. So it was a kind of research if limitation would bring us to unexpected new creations. I believe I made these series of my family and friend not only to research there identity(s) but to research my one; by creating different faces and appearances on there face and body I’m getting a brighter look at what these people represent for me and how I'm influenced by those identities very close to me. In a way, I'm looking for my one Identity by playing with theirs.