Picturing the body. The module and the response

This term see's me taught for the first time by jonathan Worth who is fast becoming the rising star of the photographic industry. The module, 'picturing the body' will set me weekly tasks which I will be required to respond to here on this blog and in picture form.

The first weeks challenge is to respond to intimate and private portraits, tackling the breakdown of the relationship between photographer and subject. It required us to find complete strangers and take their portraits in an attempt to break into there personalities a little and break down the walls of misconception, fear and ego to record something meaningful. Once this was completed we were free to capture a picture from people we knew and encouraged to draw from many sources to return next week with an overview and wide reaching response to the brief.

I travel daily to Coventry from my home in Northampton and decided very early on that I wanted to focus on the trains I catch and the people on them. I think there is an additional barrier on trains, induced by people just waking up or turning off after a long shift and on my first attempt I was flatly refused by every single person I tried to strike up a conversation with. We all I'm sure know the situation. Your tired, the seats are far too small and it's a strategy to place your luggage around you to construct a cocoon. This forms a bubble of personal space in a very impersonal location. Anyone attempting to breach this bubble will surely be met by hostilities?

Once I break this barrier down I have been told I'm on a quest for a defining moment. A moment that changes the relationship between photographer and subject or the point in which the floodgates of emotion peer open and an eye appears through the crack. But previously in my work I have gone out of my way not to be noticed so how will I know when I find it? My usual first point of research is the internet and a google search on that statement will provide you with hundreds of clips of a japanese TV show and the occasional Barack Obama speech.

Between now and then I have lined up my family in front of the tripod for a different take on personal v's private. If forming a working relationship with a stranger is difficult, then surely stripping the layers of well built barricades between family members must be even more difficult? Getting my girlfriend to relax in front of the camera on holiday is difficult enough, how difficult will it be this time when my sole focus is on her? I shall find out at the weekend.