What happens when we take a photograph
2024-
Date: 6 March 1936.
Location: Pea pickers camp, Nipomo, California, USA.
People: [1] Dorothea Lange, 40 (photographer) [2] Florence Owens, 32 (migrant farm worker) [3] Ruby Owens, 5 [4] Katherine Owens, 4 [5] Norma Owens, 1.
Location: Pea pickers camp, Nipomo, California, USA.
People: [1] Dorothea Lange, 40 (photographer) [2] Florence Owens, 32 (migrant farm worker) [3] Ruby Owens, 5 [4] Katherine Owens, 4 [5] Norma Owens, 1.
Date: 23/25/17 June 1962.
Location: Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, USA.
People: [1] Bert Stern, 32 (photographer) [2] Marilyn Monroe, 36 (actress, singer).
Location: Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, USA.
People: [1] Bert Stern, 32 (photographer) [2] Marilyn Monroe, 36 (actress, singer).
A portrait shoot is a social and physical event. The photographer and the person being photographed negotiate where to stand, how to move, where to look and when to take the picture. Questions of trust, power, care and representation are part of this process.
Thinking about the photoshoot as a kind of choreography provides a way to examine these interactions through movement, gesture, time, distance and bodily experience. Rather than starting with the finished image, the research starts with the people who were there and asks what happens when one person photographs another.
Bringing photography and choreography together offers another way of thinking about an activity that has become an everyday part of how people see and represent each other.
Images constructed with AI.