For my first five images i went to the town of Megavissey. This is a small fishing town which has a nice quiet atmosphere. The reason i went here to take images is because i knew that the people here on a whole are friendly. Unfortunately when i went to mevagissey it was pretty much empty, so after taking a few shots i went back to truro to get the portraits of the people.
This seems a little irrelevant to the whole concept idea, but even though i don't particularly like cats, i feel like the fact it let me get this close up to it pushes forward the friendly atmosphere i talked about earlier. I really like the shallow depth of field i used so that only his eyes and part of face are fully in focus. I also like the dark background as it adds to the contrast of the image as a whole.
This image unlike the rest doesn't really portray any sort of emotion in the same way, but i feel like the way he is looking into the camera shows a lot about him. Out of all the people i photographed i think this man was probably one of the most friendly, who not only let me take his picture but also asked me about the course i was doing and what i hoped to go on to do after college. At first from how he looked i presumed he would say no, so i was pleasantly surprised when he was willing to have his picture taken. I really like the contrast of this image, with the blackness of his jumper right against the whiteness of his shirt. I also like the detail on his face with his eyes being very dark. I feel with this image your eyes are drawn straight to his eyes, for the fact they are along one of the line of thirds and they are so dark that you are drawn to them.
What i like about this image is how opportunistic it was. The reasoning behind this was how he seemed very nervous and unsure of what to do, so therefore continued counting his money in his hand. I was obviously hoping for some eye contact as these generally make for a more interesting image. The last shot i got after a few average ones, was this. Where he glimpsed up to see if i was done, and thankfully i finally got some eye contact. I really like the eye contact as i think i portrays his nervous, odd personality.
Out of the whole set this is definitely my favourite image. I think what i mainly like like about this image is the emotion that is be expressed by the subject. This helps the image to really connect with whoever is looking at it, it shows his character and helps you glimpse into what this person may be like. From meeting him and taking the photograph i could understand he was a very happy and friendly person. The symmetry of his collars all aligning really help you to bring your eyes to his face. I also like the previous images of this set, like the deep detail brought out by the high contrast.
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I found this set of images strange to take as i don't usually like taking portraits of people. At first it was tough as the majority of people you ask seem to just give you an odd look and walk off, or say no sorry and walk off. Luckily once you start to get a few people who are willing to stand there and be friendly you can get some inspiration to keep going and try and get some good photographs. I found that on the whole older people were more willing to have their photograph taken. If i was to do this week again i would probably improve it by basically asking a lot more people so i had a wider variety of subjects.
