Freerange 2010

I have decided that for my project for Freerange I am going to create portraits of people who have underlying health issues. This may sound strange at first but since my girlfriend was diagnosed with Celiac disease earlier this year I have witnessed the effects this diagnosis has had on her and the changes she has had to make to her lifestyle. 

I want to photograph people with all different illnesses that affect them in different ways and I want to capture this through the medium of photography and portraiture. I want to see what different emotions I can capture within each individual that I photograph. Each shot will be in the studio with a white backdrop this making the individual the focus. I will use the Canon 5D Mark I and II with a 50mm prime lens with a low F-Stop to create a shallow depth of field which will allow me to focus on the main facial features. I may well do full body shots as yet I am undecided.

I feel that this project has more meaning to it than any other portraiture shoots I have done before as this has real emotion and feeling coming through. It isn't just photographing a random person for the sake of taking portraits for an assignment. These are people who suffer from life changing problems no matter how severe.

The main influences I have had for doing portraits are the likes of Dan Winters and his "Periodical Photographs" work which I found to be a great series of portraits. Also Antonin Kratochvil and his "Incognito" work, as well as Anton Corbijn. These photographers manage to capture the emotion from a person better than I have seen from anyone else.