Potraiture

Application: Portraiture oringinally had big money involved for artists painting pictures of royality, before the camera was invented, after the camera it was much more common to have a portrait picture and far cheaper. Portraiture started to become particularly more experimaental into the 90's. The defination of Potraiture is how the view of the picture horizontal instead of a lenghtways image which is often the layout of any potrait picture to have more of the person in better focus to a landscape image.


Context: Below ive listed and explained each photographers individually, these where some of the biggest, most powerful artists for the is genre of photography and some of the originators aswell.

This is a photo from Diane Arbus, she was a photographer in New York in 1960s, she exposed, vulnerable people. Diane herself was a curious character with a pleasant personality. Diane unfotunately commited suicide and took her life in 1971. It was believed that she just didn't get enough from her work and felt discontent to carry on because she could not capture the right images.

In 1969 she was hired by the Konrad Matthaeis and his family, they were quite a rich family,  this one of the best pictures that shows the moods captured in her work with this family. Diane would always capture more interessting moods and shots, her photos were not flattering, not smiling, ordinary family photos. In this photo espically the young girl of the family Marcella looks very distaraught, her eyes really look deep into you and you start to wonder what she was thinking at the time. She would often capture a slightly scary, physcho look. She used black and white photography, with very plain backgrounds to make us focus on the person and their emotions.

This is photo from Walker Evans this photo was taken during the 1930s-40s the years of the great depression which you can guess anyway. This photo in my opinion really hits hard and tells you just hard these times, the emotions alone in the faces shows them very worried and fed up, with a bleak future to look forward to. Walker was born in 1903 and died in 1975.

This is work from Larry Clark, was quite a reckless character, his lifestlye was made up from drug abuse and sex. He documented his life by photography, making a diary of his extreme past times, the book made of his photos was published in 1971. HIs shots are very cinematic and crude, not covering up anything showing nudity, being very graphic. This photo is a close up not showing all of his head and feet, almost masking off some of the picture, could also make u think about if he is about to do it or already have done. This photo really captures the isolation of the mood aswell.

Techniques: The photographers used black and white photography and often dull backgrounds to really create emotions in the characters and pinpoint our intention to just the characters within the image as explained above. No photo manipulation was done or extra lightning added by the look of it either.