Touch

Personal ongoing project started/developed during the Photography PPA course at Central Saint Martins, which I portrayed people touching them on their face. The act of touching someone in this project is an aesthetic representation of the intimacy that is created between the photographer and the sitter during a portrait shoot. Both become one for a moment; partners connected only by the camera. Regardless the person who is about to be photographed be a known or an unknown, a truth between the photographer and the sitter is needed, in a way that both can be comfortable in the exact moment of the photo since a portrait is a mutual agreement: it is an exchangeable connection. That has been said, I started to investigate the process of production of a portrait by doing an experiment in which I touch on the sitter’s face during the shooting session by using a 35mm camera film; firstly, with friends, later with acquaintances and at last I pushed myself to get as close to completely unknown people as the distance of the 50 mm lens had allowed me to be. That is why the titles of each picture are also an important part of the work, because they describe the nationality and the amount of time that I have known each person until to take the click. The whole plan was set and directed as it would have been in any other ordinary shoot session minded by the photographer. The project’s outcome can be understood as the audience wishes according to his own personal experiences and emotions. Therefore, Touch has been an experiment which has challenged my own fears to take down the mask of the photographer and really get close to people, giving them a piece of kindness and gentleness through a simple gesture of touch.