This project explores the idea that a camera can reveal an insight into the subjects character or the relationship between the photographer, subject and viewer. These portraits are made with a Polaroid aura camera developed by American inventor in an attempt to record what a psychic might see.
The subject is connected to the camera by sensors measuring electromagnetic biofeedback. It translates these readings into information about the subjects character and how they are seen by others. The camera generates a printed description of these views of the subject which are also depicted as color in the Polaroid.
The aura camera has undertones of pseudo-scientific authority and attributes associated with a less mediated type of photography. It's a modified land camera that uses instant film and has only one button, implying minimal mediation from the photographer.
Aura photography is a relatively recent offshoot of spirit photography. Unlike attempts to record images of ghosts, aura photography evolved from a type of spirit photography - popular around the time diagnostic imaging devices like the x-ray emerged -- which sought to objectively measure and document unseen aspects of the human body.
I am photographing people who are familiar to me, or that I have expectations of -- including family, friends and people whose personalities are in the public sphere.
