I have decided to enter BJP’s ‘Portrait of Britain’ competition. Firstly portraits are probably my weakest area in photography, I do not have much experience in portraiture, so I thought what better way to try and improve and learn more about portraiture. The current module in term 2, is ‘creative interactions’ in which I have decided to base mine around the service sector, the people who are ‘on the front line’, serving the general public, or in other words, dealing with the general public. I started my project off quite broad not knowing which direction I would go down, so I started shooting environmental portraits, as well as the space they work in of bus drivers, chefs, waitresses and baristas. Since the shoot I did with chefs and waitresses in a restaurant is in a service station, I decided to explore ideas around that service station. Finding out about the people who work there, what it is like working in an more remote location, sort of in a place that is neither here nor there. Even though I have decided to go down a specific route, I am still looking to shoot other service workers alongside the project as it is something I have found I am really interested in. You don’t always get to see more behind the scenes service workers, or even just the back of restaurants etc.
I will be showing the work I have produced up until the professional practice deadline, but will be carrying on with this live brief until the competition deadline in May. I will share the shoots I have carried out and starting to submit images. I have chosen to submit 10 images, I have done this as I am quite new to portraiture and I just want to experiment with different ideas so I want to submit more than 1 image as It is unlikely I will produce any spectacular images.
Isobel Percy 