Alison Series – Jack Radcliffe

I have been making portraits of family, friends and acquaintances for the past 35 years.  Early in my career, I discovered that the meaning of a single exposure, when it is part of a collection of moments, becomes only one element of an evolving story.  Since the addition of a new portrait changes the meaning of the entire sequence, each image is no longer static.  In every succeeding photograph, the subject and I are older, our circumstances have changed, and our relationship has deepened or dissolved.  All of these forces are reflected in my photographs.

My photographing style developed from working with my daughter, Alison.  The “Alison Series” began as a father/daughter activity.  I thought of the project as a gift for my daughter, and it wasn’t until I had photographed her for fifteen years that I considered exhibiting the body of work.

Alison was my first collaborator, and she felt free to participate in any photographic decision. Our sessions were short, casual, and frequent.  I would occasionally leave the lights set up in our home to take advantage of special occasions.

Crucial to the project was my desire to make photographs of Alison that depicted her life without my intervention.  If she had a friend who annoyed me, or had a romance with someone I disliked, I still documented the moment.  When I caught her smoking, I was very upset (this was particularly difficult, because her mother and I were former smokers who had struggled mightily to quit). Rightly or wrongly, I made the decision to include the ever-present cigarette and cup of coffee in the series.  (These situations highlighted the difficult issue for me of parental disapproval and intervention vs. my desire to objectively and artistically document the everyday “in-between” moments of her life over time.  Happily, Alison today is a non-smoker, as well as a musician and artist, who lives in Virginia with her husband and enjoys excellent relationships with her parents.)

What began as a simple father/daughter fun activity of “making images”, eventually blossomed into a years-long wholly collaborative effort resulting in seven three-inch binders packed with negatives of Alison.  They are a catalog of my memories. When I think of Alison as a young child, I immediately think of my photograph of her sleeping on Cape Cod (“Alison Sleeping, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 1978″).  As she grew older and declared her independence, I think of “Driving Lessons, Columbia, Maryland, 1990”, or the image of her writing poetry with a friend in a local café (“Alison and Bean, Daily Grind Café,  Baltimore, Maryland, 1992“).  When I think of our trip to Ireland, my memories are triggered by the photograph in our Dublin bed and breakfast (“Alison in Dublin, Ireland, 1994”).

It was through my work with Alison in the early years, that I gradually came to a career decision that was pivotal:  I decided that what was most important to me was to photograph my subjects over an extended period of time.  I began using a 50mm wide-angle lens for my Hasselblad camera, which afforded me the opportunity to get as close as 12 inches to my subject, thereby creating an atmosphere of intimacy in the image.

The Alison project was the springboard which led to the development of many other long-term series.  My process for the ongoing documentation of lives is to make appointments with my subjects usually two or three times a year.  Despite the fact that we might not have seen each other for months, or sometimes as much as a year, the sessions are relaxed.  It is something like spending time with an old friend, but the focus of the meeting is always on the subject.  I now use a medium format Mamiya 645 and studio strobes with stands and umbrellas for the sessions, and there is almost a ritual in loading the camera with film and setting up the equipment to create a studio on location.  If there is any initial tension or discomfort on the part of the subject, it usually dissipates during this process.

I usually ask if the subject has a preference for a location for the shoot.  Lighting for a location is critical to the success of the images.  My objective is to create an “available light” look, so that the lighting source is not obvious.  I achieve this by using multiple light sources, e.g., by mixing ambient light with that from strobes bouncing off environmental surfaces.  The location is thus transformed into a studio, and becomes its own universe.  It seems counterintuitive, but the lighting creates an illusion of safety and comfort, where the subject feels free to be spontaneous. At the end of an approximately two hour session, when the modeling lights are turned off, the mood abruptly reverts to reality.

About the author:

I was born in New Jersey in 1940.  I received an undergraduate and master’s degree in sociology.  I taught myself the basic photographic process in the Marines and completed advanced studies at the University of Maryland. In 1975 started to concentrate on the portrait.  I currently live in Baltimore City.

To see more of Jack’s work, please visit www.behance.net/JackRadcliffe