A year ago I New Years tasked myself with making better portraits in 2016. Portraits have long been a daunting task for me. Photographing people directly is hard, I'm awkward, and there was a complex about vanity and posing and what it meant to take a portrait that I struggled to come to terms with. At the end of last year, I struggled to find good portraits I had made. I struggled to find any that really made me feel anything.
I think I made good on my resolution. There's still a lot of work to be done and I can't say that everything here is amazing, but it was a process and I welcomed it more than I ever have before. This year, I'm not ready to say this is what I want to get better at about anything in particular. I still want to get better at making portraits, and even more so, I want to get better about asking people if I can make their portrait. I also hope to make more video projects.
I made a great deal more portraits than this, but I tried to distill the selection down to the stronger ones and to include the various opportunities I had. Hopefully they're worth your time.
Thanks for looking and happy new year.
