Either / Or

Dubbo, NSW 2017

“Discover the second face hidden behind the one you see”. Soren Kierkegaard

ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITURE II:  From a professional context, every time we consider taking an image of a person that is superficially known to us, as they appear or as they are arranged in a designated place, we open up questions of ethics and aesthetics; is our approach coming from an objective or subjective position? Is it the photographer’s world being represented or the subjects (or both) and for which, if any, are we aiming to do the most justice?

Most of the time there is a brief that comes with the assignment and an assumption that all parties are aware of the specific reason for the photography. Ideally, this makes things clear to a degree where it should shape the work without restricting the photographer’s natural instinct to be drawn to what is happening slightly off grid, bringing in all those parallel events that signify the larger story of life in that moment.