During the last couple of months I had the opportunity to take a lot of portraits while on the job documenting this or that event. I will present some of them this week, while linking to the work of others who have caught my interest.

We will start with Soft Shells, a portrait series by Canadian photographer Libby Oliver. For this series, Oliver turns the notion of portrait upside down. The portrayed people are actually hidden, quite literally under heaps of their own clothes, with only this or that body part peeking through. Ranging in age from 4 to 88, selected from a wide variety of backgrounds, through internet calls in addition to family and friends of the artists, the subjects were picked for their wardrobes. Oliver intended to present as many styles as possible – not to accuse of consumerism, but to demonstrate how personality can be expressed through choice of clothing.

 

I am not sure that a pile of jumbled and amassed clothes can necessarily reveal the owner’s personality, since much of that might only emerge in the conscious and/or clever pairing of dress items. I think, though, Oliver is on to something with this idea of hiding behind the outfits in a portrait session in your own bedroom. Good portraits hint at something with something, rather than plainly depict. They catch your attention and ask you to provide interpretation  – that act of thinking brings you closer to the portrayed person (or your assumptions of who s/he is, whether they are true or not,) and establishes thus a connection. In that way good portraits mimic the process of real life encounters with someone, relating to them in the moment, being curious about them, or wanting to gauge them, anticipating interaction.

Soft Shells: A Portrait Series That Presents Subjects in Every Piece of Their Wardrobe by Libby Oliver

 

In addition to making us think about these people, the technical aspects of Oliver’s photographic work are stellar. She obviously had an environment where she could control the lighting, the exposure, the posing etc. None of that was true for the situation I found myself in, working on a movie set recently in Astoria.

 

 

 

I was documenting the behind-the scenes work of members of a film crew that was shooting The Mortuary Collection, a Gothic Horror Anthology; it revolves around an eccentric mortician who spins 4 interconnected tales of madness and the macabre in weird surrounding. Some of it was filmed at Flavell House, a land mark Victorian house in this coastal town.

 http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2018/04/film_in_the_works_features_ast.html

But the days I was there were spent in an old gymnasium, now used for roller-skate derbies, with suboptimal lighting and chasing after a crew that was bustling with activity. Needless to say, I savored every minute of it. I also have a newfound appreciation of how hard people work when making movies. The sheer act of organizing 100s of people on a set, not get in each others’ ways, spending hours in cold, cramped conditions repeating necessary work over and over until it finds satisfaction with the director, is daunting. The workdays are by fiat 12 hours long, with meals sneaked in on set (much depends on the quality of the hired cook) and much of the labor is intensely physical because the machinery and sets are heavy. No wonder the crew is young, given the stamina that is required. And it is not just physical stamina – the producer has to spend years of finding funding, organizing continuity, keep the ball rolling until the final product emerges in all its glory. Or gory – I wouldn’t know, am waiting to see the final version, but it is a horror anthology after all.

My choice of portraits today from that film set are partially tied to Oliver’s wardrobe theme; the young women you see here were responsible for tailoring, dressing, costumes in general, make-up, acting and set-design. The men were responsible for filming, directing, moving the set around, sound recording and the like. Gender difference, anyone? 

A friendly and lively bunch who graciously gave me a few extra minutes of standing still in their mad work day. I certainly will happily do this again.