Imagined Lives/Truth, Lies and Portraiture

I visited the Imagined Lives: Portraits of Unknown People exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery: http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2011/imagined-lives-portraits-of-unknown-people.php

This exhibition was a display of old portraits of people whose identity was lost or uncertain. As part of the exhibition, internationally renowned authors wrote short stories to accompany each portrait, imagining the lives of these unknown people based on speculation of who these people could be and what these portraits reveal about their identity.

This exhibition provided me with inspiration for my project because I will also be creating my own back stories to inspire my two photo shoots. The exhibition also showed me that we judge a lot on people's appearances and that people think they can gather a lot from how someone looks. From my photo shoot I want the onlooker to be able to grasp how the subject feels and what they may be going through. For this to happen I will need to take particular notice to the relationship between the subjects' images and how they are perceived. I will judge whether I have been successful in conveying a particular mood and character through peer and tutor feedback.

I also attended a talk at the National Portrait Gallery which took place on the 15th March. The event was called Philosophy Salon: Truth, Lies and Portraiture:  http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/late-shift-1/philosophy-salon-truth-lies-and-portraiture.php. The talk focused on portraits from the Elizabethan period, including portraits of the Queen herself. The talk was not as relevant to my project as I was hoping it to be. However, the group did discuss what we gathered about the subjects in the portraits just by looking at the painting. This also showed how powerful image can be in how someone is percieved.