photography as data : photographic precedents

My first precedent is Ulric Collette's Genetic Portraits series. His series started in 2008 when he was experimenting with an image of his son and himself for a different project. He had taken a portrait of his son and pieced it together with a portrait of himself. He seamlessly joined the pictures together using photoshop and found it interesting how his son resembled him so much. From here, the series grew and Collette has been photographing families through to now.

Daughter/Father

Mother/Daughter

Ulric Collette, Genetic Portraits, 200-2012

I found these two images especially interesting as the daughter strongly resembles both her mother and father in both images. To me, this suggests that it is easier to find similarities in genetics rather than the differences.

Collette's images are so successful because of how he has so perfectly executed each image; the faces match up seamlessly which allows for viewers to not be distracted by the fact that it is two faces, enabling comparison between the features to be done easily. Collette achieved this by using a studio to control each image's lighting to ensure it was the same for each shot. He then meticulously joined the photo's together paying close attention to details such as hair lines, hair colour and finding where the faces joined up best.

This technique will be useful for my project as it is an exact example of what I proposed to do. It uses photography as data to record information on family genetic similarities and differences, exploring how they change between family members.

Here is the complete series of Ulric Collette's Genetic Portraits