Eyes, brain, heart

January 30, 2012 § Leave a comment

Three years ago, I had the incredible privilege of spending a couple of days close to the legendary photographer Terry O’Neill. It was at my work and he had been hired to photograph our people in their work environment for a major brand awareness event. A celebrity himself, the guy has spent the last five decades capturing world-famous photos of every big name you can think of. In real life, I found him approachable, talkative and almost unassuming. The sign of a true master.

I am recounting this not for name dropping purposes but because it was a discussion with one of his assistants that marked me. We were talking about “difficult” photographic fields. I said photojournalism, especially war photography. He disagreed and insisted that portrait photography was actually the most difficult area to “get it right and be different”. Photographing people was his passion and pursuit for perfection. His words stayed with me eventhough I’ve always shied away from taking pictures of people. Too complicated, riddled with potential trouble (nanny state, anti-terrorist/anti-pervert paranoia, you name it…). Since then however, hearing the same opinion from others and seeing the impact of their exceptional work capturing people and their emotions, have softened my views and gave me a definite appetite for portrait photography.

Last weekend, as I was going through my photo archive, I came across some of my few portrait shots. They sparked a chain reaction of thoughts around looking and how a look can convey a million emotions. Elation, love, sadness, comfort, anger, support, doubt, strength, fear, passion, excitement, apathy, disgust, jealousy, nostalgia, desire… Looking or being looked at. On screen, on paper, face-to-face. We analyse, interpret, respond, look back…

Today, I thought it would be more appropriate to let the pictures do the talking. A humble personal attempt to capture a miniscule fraction of the limitless palette of the human soul as seen through my photographic lens. What am I seeing, what are they trying to say, what are they thinking?