6 Photographers Asked To Shoot Portraits Of 1 Man… With A Twist

Canon recently conducted an interesting experiment on the power of perspective in portrait photography. They enlisted the help of 6 photographers and asked them each to independently shoot portraits of a man named Michael. But there was a twist: each photographer was told a different thing about Michael’s background.

The photographers were told that Michael was: a self-made millionaire, someone who has saved a life, an ex-inmate, a commercial fisherman, a self-proclaimed psychic, and a recovering alcoholic. Michael, an actor, did his best to take on the personality of each character.

“A photograph is shaped more by the person behind the camera than by what’s in front of it,” Canon says. This experiment, titled “Decoy,” was intended to prove that point and “shift creative thinking behind the lens.”

Here’s a taste of what the 6 resulting portraits looked like through 6 different perspectives of who Michael is:

Fisherman

Alcoholic

Millionaire

Convict

Life Saver

Psychic

Via PetaPixel