A Fruit Experiment
October 20, 2010
This is the first result from some hopefully ongoing collaborations with a good friend of mine Joseph Long. Joe is a talented visual artist currently working on his MA in Fine Art at the University of Brighton.
Joe originally came to me with an idea and recently both used some free studio time to work through the process. Joe has been working on a series about reactions and I (Matt) had been looking for a way to approach portraiture.
We both worked on the shoot for about 3 hours, working through a process to find what we both wanted from the image. From our initial much more violent discussions to gain a reaction from the sitter, we established a repeatable pattern in which we could be much more critical of the outcome.
By the end of the shoot we managed to produce an image which hopefully not only describes the instance in which somebody is hit, but also describes something more about role and position of both photographer and sitter. Faced with a camera, we hold ourselves in someway as we wish to be perceived, the reactions to the impact in this image over ride the subjects conscious decision to do this. The process to achieve this point took time, a lot of fruit, trust as well as relationship where photographer and sitter had to take an active and difficult role to make the image that they wanted.
Photographed by Matthew Halls, concept and subject Joseph Long
More of Joe’s work can been seen on his website www.joseph-long.co.uk he also has an exhibition of work in Room 313 at the University of Brighton Grand Parade starting today.
