So I wanted to take this idea of emotion and make it my own. Which is when I stumbled across the Photographer Lee Jeffries's SLR portrait Photography.
Lee Jeffries is a Photographer that lives in Manchester, He grew close to the football circle and then began photographing sporting events. The portraits that intrigued me the most were a selection of black and white photographs of homeless people.
This idea of his came about when he met a young homeless girl by chance in the streets of London, he recalls that, initially, he had stolen a Candid shot from the girl huddled in a sleeping bag. Jeffries knew that the young girl had noticed him but he says that something made him stay and go and speak with the homeless girl. It was here when his perception about the homeless completely changed.
They became the subject of his art. He states in a interview that Situations arose, and I made an effort to learn to get to know each of the subjects before asking their permission to do their portrait. The models in his photographs are homeless people that he has met on his travels in Europe and the United States.
Although the emotion from photographing homeless people almost should be or seems to be saddening, Lee Jeffries has portrayed these people in a different light, with his high contrast images he has enabled us to look at these people as we would look at any other person, I don't think he wants us to pity these models but honor them by looking at their likeliness in a different meaning.
All of Lee's Images are labeled with the name of the model in which is in the photograph. However since I obtained this image from Google it doesn't have this caption attached to it. So the name is unknown. I think to produce this image Lee used a digital camera maybe a canon because of the clarity and detail captured I also think he manipulated his images by using photo shop to change the original colour to black and white and then enhance the image to produce this high contrast image as the end result.
The name of the subject of this photo is unknown however we do know that he is homeless and we can also gather than he is a elderly man. The use of light in this picture is really well done, the reflected light is visible in the glasses of this old man and it also highlights his hair.
But despite all we are drawn to the figures eyes in this piece innocent, honest looking eyes.These eyes also look scared or worried because of the watery tint in them.
These emotions portrayed by the eyes is what id like my final piece to have, id want the viewer to be able to tell a story by looking at the models eyes.
This is another image by Lee for me I think this is a really powerful image it really captures this man in his natural appearance it seems. Its also powerful because we can connotate that this man is blind and unwell hence the musus secreting from his nose but despite all he still puts on a honest face and sits their begging for small change. Its like Lee's series of homeless people represent average working class people some of lee's models are blind, smoke, wear glasses but because they are homeless they are to be pitied, No! by showing us these people Lee in a way is reminding us that Homeless people are still ordinary people they aren't objects they hurt and feel the same as everyone else does.
So for my final piece inspired by Jill Greenberg and Lee Jeffries I will do a series of portraits conveying different emotions.
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