Portraits (Yr 10)

What is Portrait Photography?

Portrait photography or portraiture in photography is a photograph of a person or group of people that captures the personality of the subject by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait picture might be artistic, or it might be clinical, as part of a medical study.

THINGS TO think about

When looking at portrait photography there are various things we need to consider...

These things include what artist we are looking at for influence, how we take the picture, where we take the picture, why we are taking the picture, what do we want the picture to say or show, what lighting we use, how we set the camera and many more things! 

Things to consider when shooting portraits:

Studio space, Location, Colour images, Black and White images, Tone, Lighting, Shadow, Shooting Angle, Framing, Story you want to tell, Hair, ​Clothing - so much more

THE SELFIE

The current obsession with photographic self-portraits - The Selfie - can be traced back to the origins of photography and, beyond that, to the painted self-portrait. One of the first things photographers did when they learned how to fix the light on a surface was to turn their rudimentary cameras on themselves.

The earliest example of the 'Selfie' is shown on the right - Robert Cornelius' Self-Portrait from 1839. Since then, the self-portrait, a genre inherited from painting, has become a staple form of photographic image-making.

The Shadow Selfie

A shadow is like a photograph of ourselves, an image made by light (and the absence of it). Photographers are particularly sensitive to effects of light and so have long been interested in their own shadows. Experiment with your own Shadow Selfies, exploring a variety of effects and compositions.

The Cubist Selfie 

Artists like David Hockney, with his Joiners series, have experimented with the idea of multiple viewpoints to create a combination photographic work of art inspired by Cubism. As well as adding several pictures together, artists have also tried cutting through layers of pictures to reveal others underneath. Experiment with your own Cubist Selfies.

The Obsured Selfie

Associated with the Disguised Selfie, there are several examples of photographic Selfies in which the subject's face is obscured. This effect is a special feature of photography that doesn't feature so much in painting. The camera flattens three dimensional space so that something in the foreground can appear to be on the same level as something else in the background. Of course, some of the obscuring can be done after the fact. Look at these examples and then experiment with making your own Obscured Selfies.

The Distorted Selfie

Several photographers have enjoyed using their equipment incorrectly to achieve unusual effects. Moving a camera (and subject) during exposure can produce some strange distortions. More recently, people have discovered that playing with the panorama function on a mobile phone can reveal glitches. It is possible to create a PanoSelfie, but much more fun to do it incorrectly. Attempt your own versions.

Manipulation of Portraits

Fashion and celebrity photography can be criticised for being shallow and throwaway. Rankin is often the subject of much criticism and this project was one way for him to respond to his critics with characteristic wit, allowing his images to be destroyed and the sale of the artworks benefiting a music charity for young people. There is a great deal of skill and craft in creating seductive images that stand out from the crowd. One of the challenges of this task is to study the techniques used by photographers like Rankin and employ these to generate memorable portraits. Students must then select the most successful images to destroy. In the process of this destruction, they must consider which media, techniques or processes will add the most value to the original image, transforming its meanings. 

DIGITAL MANIPULATION

A lot of the manipulation of the photos above and historically have traditionally been hand processed.  With the development of different technologies, artists have been able to manipulate their work in programs like Photoshop to get really creative responses.  There are lots of tutorials on youtube on how to manipulate images and the creative outcomes are limitless.

Below is a list of artists that use portraits as a focus in their work.  The names in RED are the artists I would like you to focus on in this project, but for extra marks, you can select any of the other names for additional research.

Guy Bordin

Bruce Monk (dance)

Monna Petrova Lambert     (movement)

Gillian Wearing

Herb Ritts

Nichols Nixon

Anne Geddes

Tim Walker

Levi Van Veluw (sculpture)

Kristyn Vinikour (self portraits)

Annie Leibovitz

Ian Phillips McLaren

Seamus Ryan

​Hugo Tillman​

Lisette Model

Arnold Newman

Helmut Newton

Norman Parkinson

Irving Penn

Navdar Kander

Joseph Karsh

Richard Renaldi (Takes portraits of strangers)

Herb Ritts

August Sander

Darren Siwes

Sarah Small

Cindy Sherman

Edward Steichan

Alfred Steiglitz

Thomas Struth

Uli Weber

Angus McBean

Nan Goldin

Richard Billingham

Tina Barney

Harry Callahan

Ken Ohara

August Sander

Robert Mapplethorpe

Asger Carlson

​Eikoh Hosoe

Sally Mann

Man Ray

Sam HYaskins (Projection)

Frederick Sommer (Projection)

John Knights (Projection)

Diane Arbus

Richard Avedon

David Bailey

Cecil Beaton

Jane Bown

Rineke Dijkstra

David Hockney

Andy Earl

Tierney Gearon

Nan Goldin

Emmet Gowin

Mark Guthrie

Horst P Horst

David Lachapelle

Annie Leibovitz

Loretta Lux

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe (Impersonates images of celebrities)

Robert Mapplethorpe

Tasks:

For this project you are expected to complete the following tasks: 

FRONT COVER

TONAL FACTSHEET

ARTIST STUDY 1

ARTIST STUDY 2

OWN EXPERIMENTS

​FINAL SERIES 

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