Sunday 3 February 2008

Relationships...


Thinking about relationships, twins imediatley came to mind. I find the relationships between siblings fascinating and twins even more so. It is only 15 months between me and my sister and even though we are very close it is also a very complicated one. I managed to find two five year olds: Holly and Rosie and their older sister Ellie. I was able to photograph them after lots of rescheduling due to one of them being sick and later I lost my voice due to cold and flu. But on Saturday morning I had a few hours with them. Thinking about it, I have never really photographed kids to any extent, luckily they were very willing to welcome me in to their lives, this also included me taking part in all their activities.

It was hard to get the twins both in the same frame or directly interacting, it was as if they did not want to be compared, often I noticed that it was always on of them playing with or sitting next to their older sister Ellie. The slightly older twin, Holly was often determined to pose infront of the camera when the other two were playing in the back of the frame, a lot less aware, I found it all really fascinating but was to focused on talking pictures to be able to make any sense of what was going on until later. When I photographed her sisters I could feel Holly pulling at me for attention, I think my presence there my also have changed the way they interacted. After taking the camera of me several times to take pictures of me and each other, they found some of their parent's cameras and started to click away, so we all ended up taking pictures. It was a lot of running around and I didn't have control over my exposures all the time and have got some classic burn outs for digital infront of a very bright window as well focus on the wrong things. All in all I think the shoot went quite well but I would have liked to capture more of the tension between the twins but I really need to spend more time to get such moments.
I had also hoped to photograph two 18 year old twins that I found through asking lots of people, they looked really good, very punky and specific way of dressing. They agreed to pictures but later changed their mind. I think I might have freaked them out a bit by saying a could come and do some pictures when they were hanging out with their friends in Camden.... I also tried a housing project for teenage mums in my area but soon realised that I would need more time to get access, the social worker was really nice but said that understandably these girls are very vulnerable and it would take me along time gain their trust.
Instead I decided to settle for a more straight forward mother & baby relationship. I found Ania and her baby Ruby and they readily agreed to pictures. I find myself often shooting with the lens right open and on as slow shutterspeed as I can get away with and often getting things out of focus or blurred by movement. I'm not used to working on these settings and it is really intersting to see the results, quite often the shallow depth of field and most of the frame out of foccus creates more feeling in the image.
I am going to photograph a group of bridge players tomorrow and are just hoping that the continous cough I have draged around for days will miraciously dissapear!

7 comments:

Richard Schofield said...

I love this.

I recently typed up my diaries from my time in Havana in 1998 when I was shooting short documentary films for Channel Four. Every other page has something about the perfect little story I'd found and then the interviewees either not turning up or changing their minds at the last minute. It goes with the territory I'd say.

Nobody said it was going to be easy :)

Unknown said...

Love the pics and ideas on twins, I am a twin non identical, and my sister and I can barely be in the same room as each other we get on so badly, sisterly dynamics are so crazy, I am one of 8 ( whole and half, more step !!)and there is only one boy, I think the dymanics between my sisters and me reflects in all relationships I have with female friends. Very interesting subject matter and also like the angles tou used

Mia said...

Totally, but really frustrating.I have yet to see if I will have any hair left by the end of the course!

Mia said...

That is really interesting Lizzie, I can't imagine having that many siblings, let alone sisters!!! Thanks for your nice comment, I just red your blog so sorry to hear about the break in but so good that you look after your things. I didn't,I had all my cameras stolen when I lived in Whitechapel a few years ago and they were not insured and it was days before I finished my B.A. Disaster but you live and learn!!

Mark Chilvers said...

Twins are always a winner and you did well to pursue the idea. Have you seen Mary Ellen Mark's pics of twins?
Great pic.

antrim said...

yea, very good ideas, the twins--a photographer named Harvey Stein, who teaches at ICP, etc, did a book on twins

antrim said...

yea, very good ideas, the twins--a photographer named Harvey Stein, who teaches at ICP, etc, did a book on twins