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.
I think one thing to consider is the “interpretation” the music forces on the viewer. If you have an idea that you want to convey about the person your choice of music drastically effects how we all perceive the work. If you had played something comical, his look could be considered “bemused”. As it is, it presents a pretty intense and focused person. If you wanted to strictly leave it up to the viewers interpretation maybe natural sound or silence would give more freedom to interpret the subjects. It’s a cool concept. Can’t wait to see where you go with it.
I think the natural sound or his workplace background sound would be best to use…
The squinting in his eyes and the crows feet and thick skin give us a true look into the eyes of the sailor…. you can tell that Mike has been squinting from the glare off the water for many years… he also doesn’t like to have the camera on him…. about half way through, he gazes slightly to the right away from the lens… this shows a vulnerable side to a gruff sailor…. excellent work…
A friend of mine did a project using a pinhole camera where the exposure time was 1hr. The subject had to sit as still as possible during that time to create a clear image. Some are remarkably clear while others are a blurry ghost like image. Here is a link to the project.
http://www.rogersayre.com/sitting.html
I like it – especially with the video from the slr, it really just looks like a slightly moving 60-second-long portrait that you can’t look away from. And I think you can’t look away because you’re wanting to see that reaction – Will he laugh? Will he look uncomfortable? Will he continue to look confident? I like it. It’s different and just about anything different is refreshing.
Avedon did it in 1/125 sec. Why take 60 seconds to accomplish the same thing?