Wesley Portraits on Display in Presidio
School Portraits, the first presentation of work from the ongoing A Day In The Life of Wesley Series is currently on display at the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in the Presidio of San Francisco with works from other local artists and children in ArtSeed’s End of Year exhibition, Cottage Industry: Communication, Collaboration, Let’s Beat Poverty and Racism in All Their Forms! This work features three printed triptychs of an energetic young lady posing for the camera. All the children from the child-care facility at Wesley Community Centers of Savannah, Inc., ages 1-4, were photographed in portraits. The aim was to focus on the child’s eyes using shallow depth of field, or shallow focus, on a singular lens. You may see unexpected results as features blur into the background when focused sharply on a plane not much bigger than a centimeter or two. Children were photographed in different locations of their classroom with some freedom of movement without any manufactured background. Movement ranged from animated, allowing for moments of gesture and motion. Others were comfortable in their stillness, making subtle transformations in their face and posture.