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.
Just re watched all the 60 second portraits again, I wasn’t struck the first time i watched them, which i think is more to do with the format, video tends (with me at least) to be watched more passively where as a photograph is quick to force you to look deeper, simply because it inherently has less stimulus within it. However on the second watch I was really taken back by them, the Mike Horn one is particularly amazing. Its hard to stare into another humans eyes and its interesting that its still hard when technically its just pixels. I think the mike horn one is special because a few times he looks away in a particularly nonchalant way which in me at least provoked the feeling that he was disinterested with me. Powerful stuff, well done Mr Javis!
Thanks for the idea! What a simple yet novel experience. Love the results… Will continue to utilize this one. http://www.vimeo.com/23671060 This was my daughter… stress the no coaching… love the candid response of all I have done thus far.
I loved this for the mere fact that the longer I Iooked the more I realized details that I would of probably missed in a portrait.