FIG 1: Cecil Beaton, Princess Elizabeth aged 16 Wearing Insignia of the Grenadier Guards, 1942.

FIG 2: Cecil Beaton, Lady Milbanke, 1929

In beginning my research in portrait photography I am looking at how other portrait photographers contextualise their subjects. This is something that I have been practicing in the past few weeks by photographing my subjects in different environments and situations. By doing so you can see the many different personas that some people take on dependent on where they are and what environment they are in. So far I have practiced photographing my subjects in their place of work to look at the juxtaposition of their professional personas for the sake of their job compared to the other personas that they take on, as well as in doors and at home to create an illusion of having just woken up. This was to look at my subjects in a vulnerable state so that I could then photograph them when they are taking on a persona and see how they differ from taking this on and how they construct this image of themselves.

This study interests me greatly in how we construct ourselves and why, why in terms of what influence we take from the world around us culturally. For the most part of this study I will be looking at the influence that we take from social media but as I am photographing some subjects who have not been influenced by social media, this element does not apply to all of them.

Reference for images:

huxleyparlour.com

I particularly love how Uldus places signifiers and symbols together in such a bold way to communicate an idea, whilst keeping the image highly complex and interesting. I am very inspired by her ability to build so many layers into her images, they manage to communicate many different things all at once. This is something that I am really looking to do when looking at personas as I believe that there are many layers to an individual’s persona or personas.

In order to attain authenticity and accuracy in the editorial that will depict AJ’s professional persona, I have included these pages for my notes and my sketchbook. This is very important as the rules and regulations that must be followed when working with British Airways will be a core focus of the shoots.