6 Minutes of Jackson

Jackson is one of my favourite people. We spent a wonderful afternoon together in October of 2005. He let me into his world. I love how open the facial expressions and body language of a 5 year old can be -- especially his. I was hoping to capture some of this when I asked him to sit for some photos. The camera I was using, a Sony F828, has a really useful feature – the back tilts so that I can have the camera waist-height, and still see the LCD display to compose the shot, so the camera doesn't obscure my face – I can carry on a conversation with the sitter and continue to make eye-contact. So I asked questions and Jackson responded in ways only Jackson could. I had the camera set to shoot 3 frames every time I hit the shutter release – facial expressions are so fleeting. Six minutes of this generated over 150 frames, the best of which I arranged into an array of 6 rows by 8 columns. The rule I set for myself in editing was that, though I would remove frames, the ones that were left were to remain in the order in which they were shot. The array was designed to be printed on a sheet 24 x 36". At 300 dpi, with one layer for each of the 48 images, this turned into a very large photoshop file! I also played with using several frames in a little animated gif, which can be seen here. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity and means to do this. It was the first of several such Serial Portraits, and still my favourite.