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This Month's Photograph
My earliest photographs
of people were street candids. Occasionally, I made portraits of
friends. This all changed after seeing the portraits of Paul Strand and
Diane Arbus. I liked how Strand and Arbus photographed people in a
simple and direct way.
My first 20 years of portraits were mostly of total strangers in
Boston and Cambridge, taken as I roamed the streets creating photographs
for newspaper and textbook publishers. I used as a neutral a background
as I could find spontaneously. Most of these photographs were black and
white. What I liked about creating these portraits was that the people
interacted with me, influencing the way the photographs looked.
In recent years, I have mostly photographed my students at
Middlesex Community College. I initially began these portraits as a way
to demonstrate to students how to photograph people. As time went on, I
realized that these demonstrations offered another opportunity for me to
the work that I so valued. In doing so, I found myself going back to
where I started - with square, black and white photographs, taken
outdoors, with direct and neutral backgrounds. You can see more of my portraits at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullight/sets/72157650122445296/
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