For the semester long project, my partner and I focused on watermen and the impact of development on their careers. We specifically looked at St. George's Island. It's about twenty minutes up on Rt. 5, a little bit past Tall Timbers. It is a really beautiful area that shows the change in the county. There are plent of nice, new houses built up next to old shacks that are falling apart. Its worth taking a trip up there.

Anyway, my partner and I interviewed a waterman, Shelley, whose family has been in the business for generations. My partner interviewed and I took a few pictures. During the interview, I was reminded of the Richard Avedon lecture. In the lecture, the speakers dicussed Avedon's tendency to photograph standing on the side of the camera to have a more personal shoot and capture more realistic portraits. I could definately sense that Shelley was conscious of my photographing, and I'm not sure that he was completely himself. I tried to get involved and make him feel more comfortable, and I could tell that he was beginning to relax by the end of the interview.

I was also reminded of the lecture when I printed the photographs and showed them to my partner. She was in the frame with Shelley, and some of the images which I thought captured the two of them best she disapproved of. This brings up the different motivation of the photographer and the subject. I wanted to capture the sene in which I thought that Shelley and my partner looked most natural and most like themselves. However, my partner was more interested in looking "good." This, from my experience, is very common. I think that, in this sense, it is hard to please everyone. The subject has a different perspective on the image and although the photograph may be wonderful by many standards, if the individual does not feel that they look their best, they will likely be unhappy. Kissinger, for example, asked Avedon to "please be kind to me" and various individuals were unhappy with their portraits. However, many of these portraits are seen as great photographs by other individuals. This is an interesting concept and it experiencing it first hand helped me to understand.