The above portrait is meant to draw you in.  To dangle a lure to your eye.  I really don’t know if your brain will bite it or maybe pass it by.

I kinda feel like I am cheating a bit.  Portraits like the above are powerful (to me anyway).  So this is why I feel like I am cheating when I focus so much on portraiture.

Also note the terrible gradations present in the above photo.  In the scanned negative, these gradations are much smoother.  This is due to the JPEG format which is a compressed and lossy format (which I personally despise).

But what else would there be besides portraiture?  How’s about landscapes?

The first photo I showed you I would argue is 100% portraiture.  There is very little besides the faces of that woman that is involved in that photo.  The second above photo has quite a bit more to it than just faces.  It has people’s shadows and also the shadows of a building which is cast upon the building behind my two subjects.  So we are starting to peek into architecture here and the personality of that architecture.

This next one is more the landscape of postures than a portrait (in my mind).  The geometry of the street meeting the geometry of bodies.

This one is again, less portrait and more scenario.  I am trying to combine both items, fine architectural elements and solid faces.

But let’s do away with faces altogether.

This is the lovely trashcan down the street.  I thought it showed personality and emotion.  What kind of emotion?  The emotion of the lack of emotion which is still an emotion because we only have recourse to emotions.

Here we have a nice little Brooklyn setting with some reflection from the window.  The colors I think are nice and not too overwhelming.  It reminds me of the 70’s and even though disco was invented then, that is somehow comforting.  Faces in the photo?  We don’t need any.  They would really be a distraction.

So here you are witnessing a change in the photography of Jeremy (and hence StillThrill).  It is not that I am totally moving away from portraiture.  I still really enjoy it and will continue to pursue it.  But I am getting much more interested in photographs without faces.  Previously I was only interested in the challenge of capturing faces and scenery.  Now I am interested in capturing scenery for its own sake.  Not needing the face to complete the picture.

Is this a major departure for me?  Not so much.  I am just beginning to see the value of a well placed landscape shot.  And I think it will compliment my portraiture :-).

Happy shooting,

J