For this exercise the subject gets to direct the photographer – now you’ve got to take on other people’s ideas. But, remember the things you’ve learnt with Lewis’ previous exercise – from the experience of selecting locations (environmental portraits) to capturing your subject (documentary portraits)
The collaborative portrait
Collaboration is often key to successful documentary photography. Understanding people and issues often requires discussion and teamwork, and the more that your subject starts to trust you and feel you are representing them fairly the more likely they are to help you produce a successful image.
Things to think about:
- The subject (person being photographed) should choose a location to be photographed in. They should decide whether the portrait should be close up or environmental, and decide their own pose.
- The photographer should take a photograph and show it to the subject, the subject can then suggest changes. The photographer should keep taking photographs until the subject is satisfied with the portrait.
- The aim here is to think about how ideas of how to represent other people might differ from the way they would like to be shown. This assignment is all about finding compromise and agreement in these different viewpoints.
