Portraiture

MY BACKSTORY

I have taken thousands and thousands of portraits during my working career. How so many you may well ask. I was a school portrait photographer for about 25 years, working mostly in Melbourne schools, in the summer term. My career began with 35mm roll films, often taking 35 rolls in a day, and ended with digital technology to make my job so much easier. In 2005, I worked for the first time in the UK as a school photographer, spending the summer term there travelling all over UK, and into Wales. This job I continued doing for 4 more years. In 2008, while resident in UK, I managed the company and the jobs for the whole year, one time driving through snow in northern England to get to a school. Quite an experience for an Aussie.

Concurrently, I worked as an event photographer, photographing numerous University graduations, school formals, special occasions, ballet schools, whatever work came my way. I travelled to Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong to photograph University graduations over 3 years.

I also took on private assignments, shooting weddings, family portraits, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, and more…

My experiences have been wonderful, amazing, and so terribly rewarding. Nothing can replace a really special family portrait that people feel proud to hang on their walls. It just takes that one shot, when everyone is looking relaxed and happy, to capture how special it feels for the family to be together.

Whilst working in Hong Kong, I saw how incredibly important it was to photograph a whole family celebrating with the young person who graduated. Large bunches of tropical flowers, soft toys dressed like grads, were added props to the picture. People wore their best clothes, some in colourful rich silk saris, men in expensive suits, hairstyles and make-up were done to perfection. The look of the photographs had been planned by the family for weeks in advance. Marking with respect, the honour of having a graduating child, was a point of extreme pride. And no expense was spared.

But all portraits are special to me. Even working at a school, shooting 1000+ students in a day, every child needed to be treated as special, every effort was needed to make a picture their family would love. There were occasionally children who lacked self-confidence, who wouldn’t lift their head, perhaps due to rotten or missing teeth or a pressing family issue, could be gently given a little extra time and care, to help them understand that their smile was beautiful, that their eyes shone when they smiled. Provided I believed we could work together to do a good portrait, the child usually allowed me to capture a little insight into their beauty.

Since finishing the schools work, I began looking for new challenges. In the past 10 years, I have produced a number of videos which tell the life story of someone. One chap had a fascinating hobby where he tiled everything including his house; another chap was 98, his life had very little colour, but still together we produced a delightful snapshot of his life. Both these videos were screened at their respective funerals, with not a dry eye in the room.

This new direction has taught me the importance of telling the story, of how the spoken and written words mean so much, but also how the personal record becomes so special for their loved ones.

Hence the reason I want to make portraits with stories while we travel around Australia.

I was inspired by the NGA’s portraiture prize entries I saw at Grafton Regional Gallery in May ’21. These were true art. The pictures were not quick snaps. They were deeply thought through images aimed at capturing the truth of that person, with a backdrop to reflect where they belong. And the stories didn’t need to be long, just an insight, a peek into the rich variety of humans we live with on this planet.

Jenny Grinlington

June 24th 2021