The portrait series

As a Fine Art student majoring in photography the genre of portraiture continuously fascinates me. Due to my current geographical location I am particularly interested in surveying the vast amount of different people that surround me. This series of photographic prints depict people of South Africa in front of their homes. The photographs act as a representation of the divers and unique people living in South Africa today. These photographs act as a symbol of South Africa's diversity as well as similarities through representations of its people and their homes.

The obvious relationship between these people is that they are all South Africans and they all have homes to show, and these homes are extensions of themselves. The people that are represented in my photographs were all willing to share aspects of their lives with me, may it be information about themselves or about their homes. The idea of photographing people in front of their homes appealed to me as so often there is a perception that one's home can operate as a representation of its owner's character. By getting the home owners to pose for me in front of their homes I was able to see how these people wished to represent their homes to me - a perfectly normal stranger to them. Seeing the home owner in front of their house also helped me get to know the person without having to use words. Some people seemed skeptical of what I was doing and were not as willing to let me into their spaces, yet others took it as an opportunity to flaunt their living spaces to me as well as other extensions to their families i.e. children, grand children, domestics and dogs.