Portrait/Self-Portrait Critique

Assignment #3 for Photography 1, Portraiture & Self-portraiture, was reviewed last week in the class's second full class critique session. Everyone did a great job with the assignment and with the technical aspects of using Photoshop and ink-jet printing.

Issues discussed during the crit included:

what defines a portrait?

what is the difference between a portrait and a snapshot of a person?

Is it easier to take pictures of people you are close to?

Why is it important to turn the camera onto ones self?

How does lighting change the mood of a person in a photograph?

What metaphors exist within a portrait?

All pictures above taken by Becca

All pictures above taken by Skeats

Story-telling with Images- Resources for Class

Class, here are links to artists working with a series of images that construct a story about place, a person, time, history, experience and/or anything else you can imagine! Please review to help you decide what story you will tell for your final.

VII Magazine

Magnum Photos

Lauren Greenfield

Rebecca Norris Webb

Alex Webb

Spencer Finch

Elinor Carucci

Lucas Foglia

Discovering portraits...

This week's class was dedicated to exploring portraits under controlled lighting. They photographed one another with a 2-tungsten light kit.

Students have been working on their portrait assignment for a few weeks and have been contemplating what a portrait is exactly. This is one of the harder questions we have come across because there is not a clear and definitive answer. Portraiture is something different to each person and is constantly evolving into new stages of its existence.


To gain better perspective, we looked at many artists working within portraiture like Dawoud Bey, David Hilliard, Annie Lebovitz, Richard Avedon, and Elinor Carucci to name a few. We also discussed the many types of portraiture that exists--like environmental, documentary, fashion, editorial-- and the many different reasons one might have for taking a photograph of a person in this way.


The conversation carries on. Please post any comments regarding the topic of portraiture for students to read and discuss.

Re-imagining iconic photography

As art students, one of the best ways to learn a new process, technique, or style is to look at other artwork for influence and ideas.

For this assignment students were asked to choose a photograph that they admire and recreate it in their own creative vision. The top image is the original photograph and the bottom image is the student's work.

Enjoy!!!


MARY KATE (original by Bruce Davidson)



AMBER (original by Ansel Adams)



ARIEL (original by Man Ray)




BECCA (original by Ilse Bing)




BRAIDEN (original by Helmut Newton)

CAILEE


ERICA (original by Mary Ellen Mark)


JENNIFER (original by John Baldessari)



JOHN (original by Walker Evans)




LIAM (original photograph by Edward Weston)


MARIE (original photograph by Mary Ellen Mark)





SKEATS (original photograph by Torsten Blackwood/ Getty Images)