#4 The Man Behind The Camera
Photography is an art form. It gives you the freedom to express what you are feeling without the use of words. But sometimes people forget just how important the man behind the camera is.
Seeing the face in the frame you are led to believe that the frame is trying to show who that man is. But is that really the story?
#3 Different
Though he comes to each photo session dressed exactly the same, carries himself the same way, and speaks with each photographer in the same manner, the photographers treat him differently and photograph him completely differently. What is the reason behind this mystery?
What does each photographer see or feel differently about the man? And how different can the pictures really look with the same man and the same clothes?
Find out on the next page.
#2 The Twist
Here's the twist: each photographer is told a different (fake) personal history of the man. As portrait photographers, it's their goal to portray this man, as they see him, in a single photograph. This "experiment" is a perfect illustration of how we all deal with preconceived notions about the people we encounter, and how that affects the way we view them and even the way we treat them.
The experiment is titled "Decoy" and was developed as an exercise for photographers that are seeking to improve their craft. Each photographer is assigned one of six histories: millionaire, fisherman, life-saver, psychic, former prison inmate, and recovering alcoholic, and asked to capture this person's essence in a portrait.
#1 The Video
Though this experiment was designed to teach photographers about perspective, it clearly reveals something important about all of us. We see and judge people based on their histories and how we perceive those histories.
Though the subject presented himself to each photographer in exactly the same way, they each treated him in a different manner. Before they even met the man, the photographers had already decided his character. In reality, they knew very little about the man.
Here's the important lesson: the labels we give people do not actually determine who they are, only how we perceive them.
