I have always been fascinated by portraiture. I have gotten lucky in the past with some lovely images pretty much by mistake but I have never really focused on the art of portrait photography. This is my attempt at trying to understand the art form, make connections with people and try to dive a bit deeper into what it is that makes us, us. Also, I would like to find out, what is it about looking at an image of a person that tells us so much.
This project is still very much in it’s infancy, I’m still grappling with the words to describe what it is I’m trying to capture, it is on the tip of my mind, I will add more information as it comes to me.
I have completed phase 2 of the project and I’m looking for more subjects. If you’re interested and live in New Zealand please don’t hesitate to contact me at les@les-davis.me
In phase 2:
Dilesh at Architects of Air Arborialis, the Equilibria Art & Body Collective, Adora and the beautiful John and Amy who invited me to shoot their wedding. The wedding reminded me how much I love photography and kicked off Phase 2.
Thanks so much to these wonderful souls that let me photograph them I learnt a lot from this phase of the project. Mainly to do with creating a connection with the subject and also the technical side of using studio lights and different lighting environments. It also really highlighted my love for the medium and how little I know. So I’m looking forward to moving into phase 3.
In Phase 1 had 3 amazing people sit for me:
Phase one of the project with Janye, Deb and Elisabeth
For the first phase of this project I posted on the local Facebook group and I got to work with 3 amazing women, Jayne Lister, Deborah Hide-Bayne, and Elisabeth Carter. The challenge for me here was to firstly follow through with something, trust my intuition, and trust that just going to hang out with someone and bring my camera along, something would happen. Overall I’m happy with the results and I learned a lot and make really lovely connections. I did not use any lights or anything technical, I shot with all-natural light and wanted to make the experience and organic as possible.
Jayne Lister
Deborah Hide-Bayne
Elisabeth Carter