As a springboard from all the portrait work I’ve done over the past three years, I, at some time during that process, became really attuned/enamored/moved by people’s faces and started experimenting with a new creative study. Internally we’re calling it “60”. In short, it’s really simple: I’m taking 60 second video portraits of people. No instruction, no direction, no coaching, nothing. Just the camera pointed at them for a minute.
Although the concept is simple, I’ve found the results to be pretty interesting. At a fundamental level, the human face says a lot, even without the person saying anything at all.
While I’ve been at this for a while, I thought it would be time to start sharing some of these portraits here on the blog. This chase jarvis 60 features world-renowned explorer Mike Horn. You may remember Mike from my Pangaea experience across the South China Sea with Panerai watches. [Lots of posts here, here, and here.] It was a life changing experience for me, and a good bit of it was getting to know Mike. Hopefully you’ll get to know him a little here as well.
Love to know your thoughts.
[aside: if you are interested in seeing these videos when I post them to youtube, rather than just the occasional ones that make it here to the blog, you’re invited to subscribe to my youtube channel here. thx]
Shout out to McKenzie Stubbert for the music.
An Andy Warhol repeat for modern times!
Chris Floyd has done a similar project. He filmed triathletes immediately after finishing their races and came away with some really effective results.
http://chrisfloyduk.wordpress.com/
Does his face twist and contort like that in real life or is that post?
Its quite hilarious how people are suggesting you zoom or focus or give add context etc. The fact its a static shot its the whole point…
Unfortunately this particular video/portrait doesn’t work for me. I found the whole thing forced, boring and somewhat painful to watch. Usually the eyes are the windows into a person’s soul but here I’m left with nothing as you can’t see his eyes in the shadows while he’s squinting. This might have worked on another person who actually played with the camera a little bit but I found this particular person to be very average and uneventful. I know the goal was to not instruct the person at all but in this case I think he needed it for this one to be impactful.
Yes he is a known face on TV and movies, but this portrait video feels too staged and forced. Nothing about his realtime facial movements really strikes a chord with me. This portrait execution feels almost too human for me, I feel his erratic and random facial movements makes him look vulnerable.
A still photo-portrait to me is much more powerful when captured correctly. The small expressionism nuances of a face allow me to build a story within my own mind as a viewer, these thoughts are my own, and I’m eager to express my opinion with another viewer referencing this particular photograph.
Yes his face shows character, a lifetime of emotional experiences, but when shown in realtime motion, I can no longer daydream of his life stories.