People: Honorable Mention 2016 (professional)
ENTRY DESCRIPTION
The series The Grey White would initially be about people with white hair. But during the making of the portraits, I found out that the series is mostly about getting older and dealing with the physical springs overtures of your body. At the sight of their own portrait most people responded that it was a confrontation with how they looked now and that therefore the image is how others saw them.
People became more aware of wrinkles and furrows in the face and the changing color of their hair. Weather the color of your hair is gray or white, it is clearly a sign of old age though some of my models at an early age had gotten white hair.
The people who posed for this serie I get from the street. I always have to try to convince people to participate in this project. The hardest thing is that I want to photograph the people in their own home. For them it is a safe environment and it forces me to work in different spaces and light conditions and yet I have to try to make photographs that have common elements. One of them is that I shoot with daylight. Because I'm indoors I have to work with a tripod which has a relaxing effect on my working process. I take time to ease my models, to get a good angle and finally to take the shot. Because I can work slowly my models sometimes forget my presence which gives me the chance to photograph them as they are.
AUTHOR
So many people so many stories. Some of the most intriguing stories are to be found in the most ordinary situations. The people, their faces their stories, that is what excites me. A documentary style enables me to visualize part of these stories. The emotional expression is what fascinates me in portrait photography. A single glance can tell a lot.
My name is Ronald Damwijk and I am a freelance photographer with a passion for portraits and documentary photography. In July of 2012 I graduated from the School for Photohgraphy in Amsterdam. I have exhibited at Noorderlicht Groningen in 2011 and at the Photo Festival Naarden in 2013. Some of my work has been published in the online Magazine Excerpt.
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