portrait photography lecture 2018 · the first selfie hippolyte bayard made this portrait to...
TRANSCRIPT
Portrait photography
Don’t take picture OF people, take pictures ABOUT people
Self portrait as a Drowned ManHippolyte Bayard, 1840
The first selfie
✤ Hippolyte Bayard made this portrait to express his feelings about not being acknowledged as an inventor of photography.
Self portrait as a Drowned ManHippolyte Bayard, 1840
✤ He invented his own process that produced direct positive paper prints in the camera and presented the world's first public exhibition of photographs on 24 June 1839
✤ This is known as the first staged photo
August Sanders (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964)
✤ German portrait and documentary photographer
✤ "The most important German portrait photographer of the early twentieth century.”
✤ He aims to show a cross-section of society during the Weimar Republic:
✤ The series is divided into seven sections: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and The Last People
✤ By 1945, Sander's archive included over 40,000 images.
Rule of thirds
✤ Lead room - Send the viewer’s gaze into the frame
Navy Bandsman Graham JacksonEd Clark, 1945✤ Backgrounds - Keep things simple
and clear behind your subject
Rule of thirds
Navy Bandsman Graham JacksonEd Clark, 1945
The Offended WomanRobert Doisneau, 1948
Louisville, KentuckyMargaret Bourke-White, 1937
Sam Abell
Angle and Viewer’s Perception
✤ Using extreme camera angles to manipulate our perception
Cindy Sherman
✤ Looking down on someone = vulnerability, small,
✤ Looking up at someone = invisibility, power, strength
Cindy Sherman
✤ Conceptual self portraits
✤ Assumes multiple roles, uses costumes and props
✤ Often linked to feminism, since her photos call attention to the objectification of women in the media
✤ Untitled Film Stills; Pink Robes; Fairy Tales; Sex Pictures; Clowns;
Untitled #92Cindy Sherman, 1981
Untitled #58Cindy Sherman, 1977-1980
Untitled #21Cindy Sherman, 1977-1980
Untitled #6Cindy Sherman, 1977-1980
Consider your background
✤ A plain background separates your subject from the world and holds them up for inspection
✤ In the American West - Richard Avedon
✤ Small-town portraits of real people
✤ He carried a white background with him, pinned it to building to create a make-shift studio
picture of Richard Alvedon himself
In the American WestRichard Avedon
In the American WestRichard Avedon
In the American WestRichard Avedon
In the American WestRichard Avedon
In the American WestRichard Avedon
In the American WestRichard Avedon
Sam Abell
✤ Worked for National Geographic for 33 years
✤ Currently a writer, teacher, and lecturer on photography
✤ Learned photo from his dad
✤ www.samabell.com
Layering
✤ Relationship between foreground and background Sam Abell
✤ Layering your composition takes your viewer on a journey
✤ Watch for weird things coming out of people’s heads
Sam Abell
Sam Abell
Sam Abell
The Gaze
✤ Consider the power play of gazes between subject, photographer and viewer
✤ Candid photos where the subject isn’t aware of the photographer often feels “truthful”
✤ Posed subjects are very different
✤ Looking out of the frame VS looking at the viewer
Peter Hugo
The Gaze
✤ When the subject looks at “us”, the viewer, we become complicit in the action
Peter Hugo
Peter Hugo
Peter Hugo
The Gaze
✤ When the subject looks away, we feel like voyeurs
Canyon County, California, Joel Sternfield
Sam Mendes and Kate WinsletAnnie Leibovitz
Susan SarandonAnnie Leibovitz
Jodi FosterAnnie Leibovitz
Anne HathawayAnnie Leibovitz
Tom HanksAnnie Leibovitz
Portraits aren’t just faces
✤ Sometimes, there are clues about a person in how they dress and hold themselves
✤ “Don’t let your preconception about portraiture interfere with what your instincts are telling you.”
✤ Great portraits are all in the details - is the environment speaking about the person?
George Sprinkle from the series “Right Wing Along the Rio Grande”Zed Nelson, 2010
willsteacy.com
George Sprinkle from the series “Right Wing Along the Rio Grande”Zed Nelson, 2010
Mike Vitez’s Desk, 11:14PMWill Steacy, 2012
Will Steacy
My Uncle’s HomeDonovan Wylie, 1998
Diane Arbus (1923-1971)
✤ Intimate black-and-white portraits
✤ Marginalized people including the mentally ill, transgendered, and circus performers, nudists, dwarfs, giants
✤ Interested in probing questions of identity
✤ perceived by the general populace as ugly or surreal.
Boy-With-Toy-HandGrendade, NYCDiane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Jill Greenberg (1967-)
✤ American photographer and Pop artist
✤ Anthropomorphized animals that have been digitally manipulated with painterly effects
✤ How a wide range of expressions and feelings
✤ Distinct, and stylized photography of celebrities including
My Uncle’s HomeDonovan Wylie, 1998
Jill Greenberg
Jill Greenberg