By Parker McKenzie
In 2016, former Star Mail journo Jesse Graham launched a project to photograph 1000 portraits of people with the expectation it would be completed in three years.
“I thought three years gives me time that I can do one most days and still have some time to get sick or to travel and to not worry about it,” he said.
“Now it’s been six and a half.”
Not through a lack of trying, as he closes in on the magical 1000 after taking over 950 portraits —including one of the writer of this story — over the last past six years.
Mr Graham said he has learned over time that making people comfortable is more important than the technical aspects of photography.
“I love the technical stuff, I love the old lenses, how to get a nice background blur and work with different lighting but if someone’s not comfortable in a photo it shows immediately,” he said.
“There’s been a few shoots where when looking back over the 50 to 100 photos taken, you can see the comfort builds throughout the shoot. The final few photos are the best because that person has forgotten the cameras there.”
During the project inspired by portraits like Steve McCurry’s portrait of the Afghan Girl and the ability to tell people’s stories through pictures accompanied by words, another learning moment was an unconventional one about file management and note-taking.
“Most of the times my notes were a name, an email and hopefully a number saying this is portrait 500. I’m looking back on the notes I wrote three or six years ago and there’s almost nothing,” he said.
“I originally had the idea to shoot 500 people and then shoot them again one through to 500 because you get to a point of difference in time. That shifted early on a couple of people I’ve photographed with passed away.”
One of those people was someone Mr Graham had a personal connection with, who became his 228th portrait.
“I took a photo of my year 8 homegroup teacher Sue Contarino from Healesville High School. She did the walk with me for ovarian cancer awareness and I took her picture maybe a year before she passed away,” he said.
“We had a really lovely catch-up and talk about it for the paper and took a portrait there. There’s nothing incredibly detailed or technical about the image, but it’s a very lovely and emotional one.”
A website will soon be created featuring all 1000 portraits and after a trip to New York, where he plans to finish taking the final photographs needed, Mr Graham said he will launch a new project about photographing people with relics and items with sentimental or emotional value.
This time, however, he won’t be setting a deadline.
“For example, I got this ring made in 2018 when I hit 500 portraits and I had my first solo exhibition. I thought I’m going to commemorate it with a little object and now it’s one of my most prized possessions,” he said.
“There are so many people I know who have a tattoo or an object that has been passed down to them to commemorate something. I really love the stories behind those things, so I think after telling 1000 people’s stories, I’d love to tell the stories of the objects that they have with them.”
You can find his 1000 Portrait Project at facebook.com/1000PortraitProject/ and his relic project at jessedgrahamphoto.com/relics
