Assignment 5: Daydreaming While at Work - Photograph 1

For the first photograph I started off by taking the photograph (1a) that would eventually be used within the 'main' photograph (1b). I included the person who would be daydreaming at work within this smaller photograph so that the viewer of the photograph could make the connection between the 'main' photograph and the photograph within the photograph. I would try to keep this consistent with the other photographs for this assignment so that a theme was apparent, where it could be seen that each person featured in their subordinate, daydream photograph.

1a - the photograph within photograph 1b

   I took a picture of what the subject and I agreed would be typically what they'd like to be doing at 'work'. In this case, it was actually taking photographs.

   Then I printed the photo I'd just taken at a big size (A3) and placed it in a scene which showed how the person was at 'work' (he was a retired photographer). This brought up a separate, potential issue. In some cases the subjects weren't actually at 'work' but were retired or studying. This did blur the line of what 'work' should consist of, which I found interesting but not problematic. The person remained daydreaming but the workplace was instead just their home or a study space.

   Then I carefully set up the scene so that the person was in their natural 'working' environment, which in this case was my subject sitting behind a desk with his collection of cameras he had used through various years in his career as a photographer. So, technically he wasn't at work, but rather in an environment he spent much time in nowadays.

   When I had the subject posing how I wanted, I asked him to smile gently so that his expression was one of contentment but also slightly wistfully reminiscent - because he was daydreaming of the picture within the picture (that I had placed to his left).

1b - the final photograph

   I decided to keep him centrally placed in this shot because of the very interesting foreground, which consisted of the various cameras he owned. I was satisfied that this worked well, with the paintings and furniture in the background creating a nice fall off.