Portraiture

 

Portraiture mood board

 

History on Portraiture- Portraits have been around for a long time because they are not just their to show physically features they are there to show power and status such as kings when they had their portrait done. They were around in ancient Egyptian times where they used them on wall paintings and ancient Greek times when they used them when sculpting.

Diane Arbus- Born in 1923 and died in 1971. She started out with her husband in advertising and fashion photography, they became extremely successful by doing this, that they even had their work in Vogue magazine.

Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967 

Girl with a cigar in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965 

A family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester, N.Y. 1968 

Objectively as you can see in this image there is a man with curlers in his hair. As the photographer capture this image they were showing the emotions and thoughts of the person. You can see that he doesn't really care he has got a cigarette in his hand and his facial expressions are blank as if he didn't know the picture was going to be taken. It is also in black and white so you cannot get distracted by any colour so your eyes go straight to the mans face and you automatically think about his thoughts and feelings. You can also see by his facial expressions that he doesn't really care about what people think and that he knows it isn't normal to have curlers in his hair. The photographer has thought about what wouldn't have been done before. Subjectively I think the image is very powerful and says a lot about this mans personality, showing he doesn't care about what other people think of him.

A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966

Bettina Von Zwehl - She was born in 1971 and began making portraits as a student, she received a BA in photography by the london college of printing, she also achieved a MA in fine art photography by the royal college of art.

 

Objectively you can see that this portrait of Bettina Von Zwehl is very plain and simple she has thought a lot about it because her models face shows a lot of emotion. It is said that when she did these portraits she got her models to have the pictures taken from when they have just woken up and to hold their breathe. She has thought about the background and what the model is wearing because in all the portraits that she has done similar to this one, they all have a white top on with a white background behind them. By doing this you are not distracted by the background and the clothing so your eyes go straight to the emotion on the persons face. The photographer has thought a lot about how she can get different emotions across but not by putting too much into the image which she hasn't done. She has kept it simple which is what has made the images more interesting to look at.

Cindy Sherman- Born in 1954. She is best known for conceptual portraits, she is also a film director as well as a photographer. Cindy Sherman tends to work on her own when doing her photography. She controls everything by herself and directs herself in what she does. 

These are some examples of portraiture that she does on her own:

Objectively as you can see in this image the artist has taken a portrait of herself. It is bright and bold, you can see that she has done her makeup and that she has tried to blend in with the background. She has done this by her top being a similar colour to the background so by doing this it makes you focus more on her face. Also she has done her makeup to merge in with the background also. So you can tell she has put a lot of thought into the picture before she took it. The whole picture blends together as one and all the colours and similar which makes the image more effective and intriguing. Before she took this image she would of had to practise quite a few times because she has done it all herself, which means she would of had to put the timer on a certain time and be able to get into place before the image was taken. This shows she has a lot of skill and that she has taken time and effort to get her photos right. Her images are bright and colourful and are very eye catching because of this. In this particular image she has done her eye makeup so that her eyes stand out and so this is what you focus on as well as her emotions.

Here are a few examples of my own pieces of portraiture: 

Before we took these we got many ideas from other portraiture artists. We tried to use objects which you wouldn't normally see people holding to make our portraits look different and intriguing. Although these are objects you would see everyday you wouldn't necessarily see them in this way. We have used a spoon to cover the eyes and we have used cups as ears. Making our portraits look weird and fascinating. 

Here is some of my portraiture which I have photshopped as you can see in the first image this is my first try at doing photoshop so I decided to keep it simple by just changing the hair colour and the eye colour, in the other two I have change the images drastically especially the third I have used two images I cropped the body out of one and then placed it into the background that I took.