Assignment #4 - Portraits

From Wikipedia (yeah, a terrible source, but I liked the definition...)

Portrait:

"A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer."



Three rules to this assignment...no, wait...SEVEN rules to this assignment.

Rule #1: NO MYSPACE PHOTOS - I think you all know what this means. You've seen 'em, you've taken 'em, I don't want 'em. If you need a reminder about what I'm talkin' 'bout, watch this video.



Rule #2: You need to shoot at least three different people.

Rule #3: No pets.

Rule #4: One of the people you photograph must be someone you do NOT know.

Rule #5: One of those three people MUST be yourself...but, you can't BE yourself...

Rule #6 No groups.

Rule #7 Present them in color (black and white portraits will be next)

Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.



Here is a link to the National Portrait Gallery. You will get a lot of good ideas here from paintings, sculpture and photography.

National Portrait Gallery

Here is one of my favorite portrait photographers...Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon Portrait Gallery

Hiroshi Watanabe's gallery has a few sections of portraits that are interesting.

August Sander was a German photographer who made portraits of farmers and working class people near Cologne prior to World War II. After the Nazi's gained power, Sander continued to shoot the people in his city, many of them shown in Nazi military uniforms. Sander's portraits provide possibly the widest cross-section of Germans during that time.

Here is a self-portrait of me as Abraham Lincoln.



Here is our friend Steve McCurry talking about what you should do BEFORE YOU START PHOTOGRAPHING SOMEONE'S PORTRAIT.




Here's a quick re-cap:

1. One portrait of someone you know.
2. One portrait of someone you don't know.
3. One portrait of you, but not as 'yourself'.
4. One of those three portraits (no's 1-3) need to be shot with a great depth of field (lots in focus).
5. One of those three portraits needs to be shot with a narrow depth of field (little in focus).
6. At least one of those three portraits needs to be processed and shown as black and white.

Due on Monday, July 23rd. Critique starts at 11:30.