CLOSER
A photo series on relationships
Robert Capa is often quoted for saying, "If your photographs are't good enough, you're not close enough." Perhaps it not only means being in close enough proximity of your subjects, but also close enough in terms of the relationship you share with them.
I was interested in how much the behavior of a person in front of your camera is dependent on this relationship, and if the audience, when oblivious to the context or is a stranger to the subject, can deduce that relationship from the photograph. It is often said that the key to a successful portrait is to be able to make your subject comfortable in front of your camera. In the fashion or commercial world, the challenge is to do that with people you barely know. But can a photographer who is skilled at such challenge truly recreate the level of comfortability and sincerity in the same way as a photographer who is actually close to the subject? Likewise, can a photographer truly represent himself through a self-portrait or will there always be a biased projection of how he wants to be seen by others?
This was not a self-conscious project but simply something that I noticed I started to collect and still am: portraits of friends, family, acquaintances, experiences, or interesting people I find on the street. This was a project from late 2014 and is what probably got me into taking more and more portraits. I'm challenged and at the same time fascinated at how much a portrait can tell something about your subject. Be it truthful or insincere, the power to be able to project or honestly represent ourselves in a photograph is what draws me to create more.
