Portraiture/Fine Art Portfolio

Pecker

Pecker is a hilarious film about a Photographer named Pecker that takes a street style approach with to his shooting. The movie follows his story of his almost accidental rise to fame. Taking pictures of his bizarre neigborhood. From his loopy grandmother to his sugar fiend sister. Which by the way is one of the funniest characters. Pecker then holds an exhibition where a female New York "art insider" agent discovers his talent. Pecker and his family/friends blow into stardom and their lives begin to change. From his friend that couldn't get laid is getting laid, to his sister going on ritalin for her sugar addiction. The film then follows the loss for who they were and how different their lives became. Pecker struggles to remain happy and kisses his art agent. His girlfriend see's this and the movie takes the turn for the better. Pecker catches up and has sex in polling station with his girlfriend proclaiming his love for her. From then on he doesn't go to New York and he gets people to come to his small town. Being comfortable and resisting the other life him and his family were living. The movie had great humour with outrageous characters and Pecker himself was great and an inspiring character. A great laugh and superb characters.

One Hour Photo

One hour photo is about a lonly man that works at a 1 Hour photo lab. He begins creeping on a family. For quite awhile actually he has a home that is full of pictures of this family. A weird obsession and disconnection from reality. You feel pitty for the man and care but disgusted with his strange obsession for the family. His work is his haven his home is lonely hell and the family is a dream. The movie takes a stranger twist when he finds out that the man in the family is cheating on the wife (who he considers a goddess). He trys to break them apart by putting a picture (the misstress' photo) of the two committing the adultry. The wife despite seeing the planted photo doesn't react to it in the sense of breaking off the relationship. Sy (the creepy photo tec) then follows the husband and the mistress to a hotel where he holds them hostage with a knife and gets them to perform sexual acts and he takes pictures. The police are hot on his trail and the sense of the worse (sy killing them) is to come. The police capture Sy and the family is reuinited.
This film was weird but kind of confusing at the end. Sy says "I only wanted to take Picutres." and he asks for his photos he took. The pictures are of mondaine things and not of what the film had showed. I asked other students about and they seemed to be confused too. Besides the confusing end the main character played by Robin Williams was brilliant.

Born Into Brothels

Born into Brothels is a documentary style film that takes place in the slums of Indian city. The story follows a group of children that are born in poverty and into a sub-culture of brothel houses. The poorest of poor and children that look like they have no hope of doing something positive in life. A female photographer from England gives them a chance by starting a program called "Kids with Cameras". Basically teaching the children how to use cameras.
As the documentary continues to follow the childrens lives you begin to realize how bad and the type of dysfunction they live in. The young women being pressured to join the prostitution lines, the feeling of no hope they encounter, the despair, the frustration. You feel your heart strings being tugged at how sad of life they do live. And although they are just children some of the things they say is quite astounding and mature.
The photographs that the children are quite powerful and give an insiders look into how and what they deal with from day to day life. From the filth they live in to the work their parents do.
The story has a beautiful spin to it. For all the photographs that were taken by the children they are published, printed and sold for their education and to give them a chance to get out of the negative life they live.
In the end the 8 out of the 9 children are leading much better and productive lives attending school and recieving education. The story of these children is absolutely inspiring and a beautiful thing to hear in the world that we live in. Extremely powerful and can't quite stress enough how caring and beautiful the story is.