was at Lighthouse till 10 pm last night – two shoots – one with a man who is 86 and another – a third shoot for a woman who was 61. It was an interesting night. The man, who initially seemed reticent to be involved, enjoyed it in the end. We conversed a lot – just to get to know each other and relaxed. It was interesting – he said he didn’t really like to display emotions. Emotions were something felt, but not displayed. emotions where something he thought about later – long after the emotional stimulus. Again, anger was something felt mostly between family and friends, sadness involved death and family. Happiness involved early family memories. A beautiful simple memory of holding his father’s hand. his father’s hand strong and big. It was a great hour and a half. i will look at the footage today. As he mentioned, the hour and a half felt like a privilege. A rare experience, where he got to talk, I got to listen and ask questions and with the camera in front of me, I got to ask questions that probed deeper than what I would usually ask.
I then started on the third shoot with a participant. It was amazing to see her face in front of the camera again. After hours of editing her face, i felt like I knew her well. But she was tired- we started the shoot at 8.30 at night – We tried to get the lighting right – to match the last shoot. We tired to get a hair right for continuity, but the month in between her hair had grown an inch or two. she had been in london for the day. She had also spent half an hour waiting outside the building of Lighthouse. It was amazing to look through the lense and see her face again. She looked tired, and the tiredness revealed a completely different face. Or, it could have been that it was our third shoot, and the familiarity revealed a different face. It was incredibly interesting to see. I will look at the footage today to see if it can be used, but I felt like I was shooting a completely different person. Amazing how the time of the day affects the reading of the face, the display of the face.
We have a team of people in at Lighthouse this morning – Hayley and Connor – young students who are helping Natacha and Michael build the screen. We have Andy, a graduate of photography and media studies, and we have Karl, from informatics and Brighton and sussex, whose background is anthropology. They are all huddled around at table building the screen. Michael has arrived from paris with more suitcases of gear and got charged a fortune on Ryan air for extra luggage.
