Fundamentally Broken: A Narrative Character Portrait by Connor Leak (2015)

This is my character, Richie. Richie is a star athlete whose season has been cut short with a humbling injury. This picture shows a period in time shortly after his injury where he is taking a rest from walking while he is geared out in his team clothes. Since his injury, he has been very somber, which is a drastic change from his enigmatic non-injured personality.

The props I used for this portrait were the football jersey and hat, the leg brace, and the cane that he holds. These props are used to give the character some backstory, setting up his athletic origins, as well as his injury. I tried a few different angles, but I chose to have my final angle be head-on so that I could fit his whole body in frame proportionally. Also, with his face looking away from the shot, gives the viewer gets a little more insight on the character's personality because it shows how he feels ashamed of his injury, and how he is embarrassed by it. The biggest problem in my photo shoot was that the lights had stopped working ¾ of the way into my shoot, so I wasn't able to have as wide a selection of shots that I could have picked from for my final product. Despite that, I think that my final selection is the best shot that I could have made for this character, and the emotion of the portrait that I was trying to convey.