As I am taking photos of homeless
people for my Waste project, I wanted to use my research to see how
photographers capture the feelings of the homeless person through their shots.
What seemed to come across with the work of the photographers I looked at was
that they all take close ups. The focus on the eyes seems to capture the
despair and desolation within the person.
I looked at Steve Huff whose images told
exactly of the despair felt by this group of people. The cut to the face and
the lack of care to the teeth portray the effects of homelessness.
Lee Jeffries is another photographer of the
homeless. He likes to connect with his subjects by gaining their trust first
and also shows their despair through the eyes. He feels this is the most
important element in telling the story of the image. He does enhance his photos afterwards to
achieve even more impact. He said in an interview: “I process, predominately
through dodge and burn, to develop the mood of the eyes. It’s the eyes that
attracted me to take the photograph in the first place and this is always the
starting point for the emotional element of the image. I process with light and
shadow in an almost religious way.”
All the images taken show
similarities, the blackened skin where they have not been able to wash,
overgrown facial hair, and quite often injuries of one type or another. All use
close ups to achieve the effect they want to portray. The majority of the
photographers I looked at use black and white film. I feel this has the effect
of portraying the darker world they inhabit.
The similarities of dirty skin and overgrown facial hair are
shown again in the following image by Michael Pharoah, but as he has used a
colour film for this shot, it seems to give a softer feel to the image.
Doing this research has made me
realise how important it is going to be that some my shots need to be close up
to get across the true feeling of the
desolation and waste of the subject’s life. I need to show the person’s
emotions through their eyes in the same way of the photographers I looked at in
my research.
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