Courtney Mannion --Senior Portfolio 09: 8/27 -- Courtney Mannion

I've been thinking a lot over the summer break about what I wanted to do for senior year. I've been trying to come up with something for a really long time now and I keep finding hazy close ups of people floating around in my head. With this in mind, I'm thinking that I want to do non-traditional portraits, close-ups and then the person doing something else (I haven't figured out what) in an image that is taken from farther away. Whatever it is I decide for them to do, I'm going to want that to be the "meat and potatoes" of the piece and have it connect all of the people somehow.

I really want to focus on the person in the image and their emotions. I'm still pondering aesthetics and how EXACTLY I want everything to look, but I do know I want grit and melancholy but I am going to try it in a way I haven't before.

As far as generating a question goes, I know that with a lot of my critiques I don't really say much about my work as far as content goes. I make each piece with something in mind but I don't like to force that on my audience. Do you feel like I should maybe make my images with a more straight-forward message? Should I leave them as ambiguous, allowing for the viewer to inject their own story upon them? Am I just imagining that there is content where there isn't any but rather a façade?

Here are some images of my own and of other Photographers that are going to be my inspirations for this year:

Julia Margaret Cameron