Shadow Portraits
This is a project I’ve been meaning to get to grips with for a while now. There’s something of the confessional about it.
I want to trace shadow portraits but specifically the moment after the person has told me something, anything, confessional or otherwise.
It just so happened that I had some birthday wrapping paper left over so I thought that would make a good start. I asked Paddy what’s one of the most memorable birthdays and why, this is what he said;
“Best birthday was at Marwell zoo, it rained, I was about 10. On the way home dad pulled up into a lay-by and for a joke pretended that we had run out of petrol 2 miles from home. My friend Darren Mansfield started crying in the back of the van.”
This is the initial stage of this project. I’m thinking along the lines of whether the photo is more succinct in expressing the idea or if the tracing itself is enough. And how to include the text; maybe hand write it on the paper? Get the sitter to write it?
As always, lots of possibilities none of which are clearly right or wrong, and at the end of the day are left to subjective judgement.
What I do know is that it’s handy to give a project some time to breathe. I need to be able to look at it in a new way and decide what needs tweaking and why.
