‘I stood up straight like I wanted my subject
to for his portrait.’
I had stopped listening by the time that the
father of my chosen subject told me that his son, Mario, has learning
difficulties. I’d made my decision and gone into an automatic ‘patter’ of
politeness. I don’t mean that flippantly. I mean no disrespect to either Mario
or his father.
I had just stopped listening and had
concentrated my efforts into seeing the finer details of the individual. I had
picked him, objectively, as an addition to my typology of a sub-cultural group
at the skate park.
As with the other subjects in this series of
photographs, Mario’s identity is shaped by signs. Some of the signs have been
bestowed upon him, such as age, gender and race, and fall into an everyday
system used by us all, influencing how we choose to accept and understand each
other. However, our interpretation of others’ identities is also swayed by a
more complex construction. There are choices that they have made in how they
present themselves: brands, clothes and hairstyles, for example. These signals
inform our analysis of them.
A breakdown of these signs denotes that Mario
comes under the umbrella of skater, along with the other subjects in this
group. However, although they may all be sending similar skater ‘sub-culture’
signals, they are all distinct personalities. In Mario, I was conscious of
something else, a stillness that drew me to him, without knowing anything
personal about him.
No comments:
Post a Comment