Part B-Written Reflection Kya Harris

I was (and am) inspired and fascinated by photographer Platon’s portraits. He has the gift of
capturing emotion and soul on camera in such a stunning way, and that was my goal for this
project. Though unlike Platon, I didn’t use any fancy lights or a high-quality film camera, and for
most of my portraits my models were not focused on the camera, or simply forgot it was there.
This is how I wanted it. I wanted emotion. The real stuff. None of this hand-on-hip, perfect,
practiced smile staring with lifeless eyes into a lens. No. I wanted raw, living, youthful and
spontaneous perfection, to be captured in an image forever.
So that came with its challenges. Consent is important to me, especially with pictures. But the
problem with asking for consent is that as soon as people are aware that they’re having their
picture taken, they lose the genuine “realness” to their expression. But it’s important!! Thus,
my dilemma. For most of the photos, I would have the subject talk to me or someone else in
the room. Or I would simply sit and wait, carrying on with something until they started looking
more natural, or again, forgot I was there.
At the “beginning” of my project I had the idea of getting my subjects to stand or sit in front of
a neutral background (see my grandparents’ pictures) to try to eliminate distractions. This
proved difficult, because if there was any authenticity of emotion left after I asked the subject
for consent, there was hardly any left after positioning them against a wall. So! I adapted my
original idea to allow a little bit of leeway in backgrounds. I also didn’t worry too much about
other, minor things in the picture, because as long as my subject was the main focus point, it
didn’t affect the overall photo.
I decided to make all the photos into black and white to further eliminate distractions and to
have the viewer focus on the expression and emotion of the subject. I played around with the
contrast and exposure, and I cropped a few of the images, but for the most part I keep the
original integrity of the photo.
As for composition, I didn’t really use much, being that they were all portraits, and thus,
closeup. However, I used both types of balance and the rule of thirds in my photos, because
again, the main focus was still the subject, and it looked nicer than cropped it straight to the
individual’s face.
Overall, I’m very proud of my work. It was much more challenging than I thought it would be; I
think capturing a “good photo” is 99.9% made up of the photographer and how they influence
(or patiently wait for) the environment around them, not by how expensive the camera is!