We all struggle and will have battles, some are internal that no one sees but ourselves and some are external whether it’s family, friends, coworkers or whoever. Both are equally as real and are taxing on a body mentally and physically and we just want to escape. Some of us take the challenges better than others, some of us face tougher challenges than anybody will ever know.
I recently watched a series done by Scott Nathan Photography called the Truth Project. It was a very simple project where he wanted to answer a question that was asked of him years earlier in an interview. He was asked “Is it true that the camera never lies?” As a commercial photographer who’s principle job is selling consumer products and making people look their best, the answer was decidedly “no”. The camera mostly lies.
With that question, he decided to explore the souls of his friends. With little to no hair or makeup and austere lighting, they all sat via two 10 minute takes. One ECU (extreme closeup) beauty shot and one nude. The only direction he gave was to remain relatively still and not to take their eyes off the center of the lens. I suggest you take a look at his Vimeo page at some of the videos from the sessions. You will see small glimpses of what people are holding inside as they momentarily let their guard down which illustrates my point of this post and photo essay.
I often mask my struggles in my art, I use the medium of photography to help deal with some of the struggle, and some of it is just a release of the built up stress and pressure.
Please feel free to leave any comments you like.
Again make sure you check out “The Truth Project” HERE and Scott Nathan Photography on Facebook HERE
by sean
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