Photography
Photography Exhibition ‘Who Are You?’ Series
The most elemental question but one that is not always easy to answer.
I am curious by nature, this has led me to explore and capture people’s stories through the use of photography and film.
I have always been happy to travel through life, blurring any lines placed before me and for the first time in my life I felt like I had to define something about myself. Along my own journey of self-actualization I tended to answer this question by naming roles that I fulfil, roles that others see us in, but these are actually things that we ‘do’ rather than what we’ are’.
When we identify with the roles that we fulfil, it becomes very difficult to accept it when those roles change, do we change as the person we believe we are?
For this exhibition I have chosen a selection of portraits in reality style setting that showcases a subject with a very strong social identity that is not accepted in society and overlaying it with acceptable societal roles in order to gauge what ‘self’ emotion is stronger.
SAM: Father: Employer: Grandfather: Kayaker: Maori: New Zealander: Black Power Member
The intention was to shoot Sam in natural light and in a range of locations that articulates his character, while using a wide angle lens to make Sam look bigger than what he is to add another depth to the question ‘Who Are You?’. What I came away with is:
You are indefinable.
You are the only one in this world who gets to say who you are.
Behind the Scenes Documentary Photography
