This Brief is by far not my strongest suit. The brief asked of us to generate three portraits. One of them was a self portrait, a portrait of a friend and a portrait of a total stranger. This brief did not sit quite comfortably with me as working with people is not a strong suit of mine because of issues personal to me with social anxiety. I managed to get a portrait of myself done quite quickly but having to ask my flatmate who is busy was not the most comforting thing in the world to do. This was especially tough with the stranger as social fears and the awkwardness of the situation was kinda off putting. My self photo and friend photo were taken outside with natural light which is probably not the best of light sources for portraiture. My stranger photo was also taken outside but used artificial light sources from street lamps as it was taken at night with very little natural light.
“Portraits have been around since the beginning of time as a means to describe not only physical features but more importantly power and status. Testaments of portraiture as a genre can be seen as early as Ancient Egyptian wall paintings of gods and pharaohs.”
https://www.fabulousnoble.com/news/history_of_portraiture
Portraiture, like still life, is another form of art that has lasted throughout the centuries from ancient times to the modern era. Going from the wall paintings of old pharaohs through to the renaissance and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The practice of multiple sessions were the subject has to sit for hours on end faded at the advent of the camera were portraits could be done in the fraction of time it used to take. It wasn’t until the portable camera where portraiture in photo form became a thing for everyday people and not just the rich and special few. The age of the mobile phone has also given rise to a new form a self portrait, otherwise knows as a ”selfie”, where anyone who has a mobile smart phone can take a self portrait with a few taps of a screen.
Stanislav Puchkovsky (Sean Archer)
Stanislav Puchkovsky is a photographer who specialises in portraits that only use natural light. He has become specialised with natural light portraiture because of his predicament of living in Russia and it being too cold to shoot outside. He utilised light from a window in his own home up against the wall the light went onto with the only thing he could control the light with being a shutter on the window.
His use of only using a single source of natural light allows him to bring out the natural beauty in people and generate a warmness from subject with the colour tones the light brings. All the models he uses are female and are mainly his friends that he knows or friends of friends which he can then use to bring about a more natural look in his photographs as he liked to get his subjects comfortable before taking a single photo.
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon’s exhibit of him exploring the american west is a famous exhibit were Avedon travelled around the working class looking to portray the misfits that are generated in the back country of the american west. The photos produced from this exhibit portray a police mugshot/lineup type image that makes the pictures look more incriminating than they should be. What is interesting about this certain exhibit is the way in which each subject was captured all using a simple setup of a white taped up background against a wall and utilised indirect sunlight by taking the photos at a specific time of day.
images sourced from http://www.americansuburbx.com/2011/01/richard-avedon-richard-avedons-in.html
By taking the photos during the morning on an eastern wall the light from the sunlight over the wall created indirect light as shadow was created in the space around them from the eastern wall blocking the sunrise behind it. The effect of this and the white background creates this mugshot type image. Avedon also does well to capture his subjects in a way that they have just been taken out of the environment they were in and placed them in front of a white background.
Reflection
In reflection i am not overjoyed with how my images turned out. Other than my stranger portrait were i just happened to find a well enough artificial light source that worked well outside. My other photos i feel like i could have situated them in a better environment were i had more control of the lighting to try and capture a better image. I could have utilised the photography studio within the university were i could have had complete control of all the lighting in the room to produce better photos but i wanted to try and see if i could produce something well in conditions of natural light.
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