Oh, hello.

I've spent the latter half of this morning editing photos from the last three days worth of shoots and watching Genius of Photography. I think Genius of Photography has confirmed my preference to contemporary photography over classic photography - I've just finished episode three in which they covered Robert Capa and the like - I did try quite hard but I'm really not interested. I'm waiting for it to get to Martin Parr and Larry Clark, but I'm learning all the same.

So, excuse the absence but that amount of shoots for this project in quick succession makes me all the more reluctant to edit and round up what I've been doing, but, there's RDB work to be done before my sister comes down to visit for a few days on Wednesday. I'm hoping to fit some kind of dissertation work in there beforehand too as Halloween is coming up and no doubt that will throw me out of my work cycle a bit.

Here it goes anyway.
This is Rishi Ghosh, he's a 24 year-old actor from Portsmouth, he's half-Chinese, half-Indian. He's much happier with being half-Chinese than he was when he was younger as he has found that it has meant he has been able to play a variety of different ethic roles, including Mexican and Maori. He has just wrapped on the new Johnny English film, in which he plays a Chinese monk, which is why he came to the shoot with such short hair.

The shoot I had on Saturday was with another complete stranger, his name is Gareth Lewis, he is actually making a documentary on this very same topic. So he used the shoot and talk with me as some research into how he will end up approaching making it. He is eventually going to get round to pitching to Channel 4, Gareth has already had a couple of documentaries commissioned for the Community Channel, they can be found on his Youtube channel, but he actually works for Leasehold services at the moment. I think that his is my favourite portrait so far as he's so different looking, he's actually my oldest subject so far at 31.

And yesterday, I did a shoot with Tai, our mutual contact being Rio. Tai said she often faced bullying in secondary school but rather than the bullying being race-motivated, it was more a tool to back up why they were bullying her and to add insult to injury. She doesn't speak any Chinese but it learning as she is going to see all her Chinese relatives in Hong Kong in March and wants to be able to communicate with them.

I made this too, just to get my head around how many people I have, I'm pretty pleased with myself actually. From knowing only 3 (4 including myself) half-Chinese people and to now have photographed 9, soon to be 10, I'm really surprised. I really think I need to even-up the girls though.

All images, © Ruth Johnston 2010.

Just thought I'd post this to let you, and my future self, know where I'm at and how I'm getting on. I feel like the photography side of this project could be ready to rap up as ten portraits genuinely is a lot. I really, really need to work on my main focal point, I think I've forgotten a little bit.