The exhibition In Your Face is taking place at Bradford’s National Media Museum until 30 October.
During the summer, photographer Richard Stanley took hundreds of pictures of groups, families and individuals that visited the museum. The pictures encompass a vast range of ages, backgrounds and nationalities, including Australians, New Zealanders and Saudis. Visitors were also encouraged to bring in objects and dress up.
“It is a fascinating project. As well as attempting to capture people’s personalities in a photograph, it gives a very interesting insight into the many different people who come along to the National Media Museum,” said Stanley.
“Some brought in an object that is special to them, and we asked others to come along dressed in their ‘Sunday best’. But it is their faces, and how they express the interaction, which tells the real story.”
The portraits can be viewed in the exhibition and on the museum’s Flickr page. In Your Face explores people’s fascination with portraits, and gives visitors the chance to experience a range of exhibits exploring this theme. For example, they can see what their own faces look like heading a ball in an installation by artist Leo Schatzl and find out about the latest facial recognition technology being deployed by police.
More photographs of visitors will also be taken at the museum’s next evening event for adults for Portrait Slideshow – a travelling photographic exhibition.
Visitors at the event, taking place on 29 September,will also be introduced to new technology designed to read a patient’s vital signs through facial recognition software, learn about how facial profiles of suspected criminals are created and listen to representatives from Aardman explain how characters Wallace, Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Morph communicate through facial expressions.
Comedian and writer Rob Auton will be performing a spoken-word show based on faces.