Despite the encouragement to show a portrait of an individual for this post, I took photographs of two friends, Aya-san and Mai-san; for two main reasons.
Firstly, I always meet these two girls together. They are both studying English, they hang out together all the time on campus and go shopping together at Shinsaibashi at the weekend. From the short time I've known them it seems difficult to imagine one without the other.
The last thing I want to do is indicate a lack of individuality, because Aya-san and Mai-san have very different body language, behaviour and of course alot more.
The other reason why I have photographed two people is out of consideration for the subjects. I felt a little awkward asking relatively new friends if I could take a picture of them; as I would only agree to something similar out of obligation, rather than choice.
I felt that they would feel more comfortable to do this together rather than alone. Following that, I could not choose to display just one person, for fear of embarrassing that person and offending the other.
I've been rather scarce with description about the people I have photographed, this is due to being (perhaps overly) conscientious of privacy and identity. It reminds me of the question asked in class of "what right do we have to translate another culture/person into our own words."
This time, I've probably been too cautious to give any real insight, but the experience of this exercise has been a new one for me, and has provided an insight into the complexities of photographing and writing about other people.
I am glad that you are doing something new, learning and contemplating the nature of cultural representation. It is not an easy thing to do and experience is probably the best teacher.
ReplyDeleteDespite the oh so many peace signs, I do like the second photo - you captured an interesting facial expression that seems to give me an idea of her personality.