the story behind the EYES

've been working on a few new banners recently, and I've created a composite for the 'portraiture of the poor' banner using Lisa's image from early 2006, which is probably one of the most powerful portraits I've ever taken of anyone.

The eyes are truly the windows to the soul.

Lisa (search Lisa & Letlet here on the website) and her large Family are from Cebu and I've known and helped them for the past 4 years, and I've probably shot a few thousand images of her Family.

The 'Lisa Eyes' portrait is a very special image to me, and since Lisa's Family is part of the working poor in Philippines I very much wanted to use part of her portrait in the new banner, which is actually a crop from a much larger image I shot of her and a local boy who found me outside the local general merchandise store in their barangay, and so I ordered a BBQ lunch for them both while we all sat outside the store.

Lisa's image was a spur of the moment, hand-held, available light, casual street shot portrait (as all my portraits are) as she sat waiting for her lunch, and below is the 100 pct. un-sharpened crop.

Cebu, Philippines: Lisa photographed at 2:56pm
Olympus E-1, Olympus Zuiko 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 Digital: 1/160s f/3.3 at 37.0mm iso100 (100pct. crop)




























Here's the original image in its original 4/3 aspect ratio, un-cropped:































Below is a crop of the image I used in the banner composite.

My good friend Kevin Weir was actually able to see the Family over the weekend in Cebu; he flew in for just a few days (he was already in Asia) and made it a point to travel to Lisa's house with rice and goodies for everyone there, and reports all are doing as well as can be expected, and I can't wait to see them all there, as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading today,
PJAMES