Exercise: An active portrait

Outline: Take a portrait shot of your subject undertaking an activity.

This exercise is what I am comfortable with. Taking photos of people doing what they normally do and see what images I get afterwards. I chose to use my dad as my subject for this exercise. He really enjoys cooking and so it was easy to photograph him while he prepared a family meal. My main direction to him was to just be normal and to pretend that the camera wasn't there. He spent the entire time complaining that the kitchen was messy and that he didn't look decent enough, haha.

I tried to capture his expression and concentration mostly, although I was also obviously trying to get into the shot what he was actually doing as well as trying to include some extra detail of the surrounding area he was working in.

Subject looking down to much to get any facial expression

Losing activity detail due to positioning

There were a few that I liked that I didn't feel were quite what I was after. I changed positions as I followed him around the kitchen but kept losing facial expression as he was constantly looking down and that made the images more about the activity than the subject (see above).

I have chosen the final image as I feel there is equal focus on the subject and the activity for the viewer to be able to get a sense of what he is undertaking and also the focus of the subject on the activity.

Final Image

An active portrait

Conclusion:
This exercise saw me more in my comfort zone. I prefer taking photographs of people in a more natural setting as I feel some portraits can be over posed. I think the viewer gets a good oversight of the activity in hand as well as the concentration and dedication from the subject to what he is undertaking.