Research for Portraiture

Thomas Ruff:

Thomas Ruff is a portraiture artist. Personally, I do not like his images as I believe they're boring, and not 'art', due to the fact anyone can easily photograph images like these. 
Ruff may have used deadpan expressions to highlight the various details in individuals faces. The people in these images appear almost as dolls/not real people. Thomas would have done this using the lighting.
These images challenge norms as in the image on the right the man is on a pink background, whereas the woman is on a blue one. This is strange as blue is associated with boys, and pink with girls. 
 These images are extremely structured, and not free. Ruff used the deadpan expression to highlight how you don't know what the subject is feeling, whereas in normal portrait imagery you capture emotions. These images would have been shot on a high aperture score, due to the face, and the background being in focus (wide depth of field.)

Alec Soth:

 I like Alec Soth's images as he also captures the environment, and backdrop in which the image is photographed, as well as the portrait. This gives you a sense of perspective, as to how small us as humans are too the environment/world around us. In the image to the right, and the one below the backdrops are grand, which implies they're more than us as humans, and were merely a pinprick in the world. 
I like how in the photograph below, the man is captured with toy planes, this gives us an insight into his hobbies or likes- as clearly he enjoys planes/ building things, as his clothing appears as though he has been making objects, due to the splattered paint over it. 



Muted colours are used in Alec's photography, these imply calmness and silence as they're not saturated and extreme colours which would imply business and fun. However, the image above of the man lying down has slightly brighter colours, in contrast to the other two images. This image has more autumnal images, in the organs and browns. These images (especially the one of the man holding planes) would be shot on a lower aperture, due to the background being blurred (shallow depth of field.)

Alec Soth is considerably more interesting to me than Thomas Ruff as his images are not just on plain backgrounds, and include the environment in which the images are taken too.

Portraiture - Definition Post

Portraiture: 

Portrait photography or portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person's face, although the entire body and the background or context may be included.
Different lighting can affect the sexuality of the image0- the darker the image, the more masculine. Whereas the lighter the image the more feminine it is considered. In addition portraits capture the emotion of the person, the photographer can have an impact on this. 

This image is by the photographer Annie Leibovitz, this image is of Meryl Streep. This image implies that due to Meryl being an actress and playing various roles/characters, she is attempting to remove the white mask (her character.) This image is empowering as it implies she places on lots of different masks when playing her characters, but no one knows the true her; therefore she's trying to remove these masks and show everyone the true her. 

This image is photographed by Thomas Ruff. His photographs can be perceived as passport images. All his images show a deadpan expression. I dislike his images as I don't perceive them as art due to you being able to obtain them anywhere (i a photograph booth.) No expression is captured in the portrait due to it being deadpan. 

I like this image photographed by Alec Soth as not only does he capture the persons emotion and face, he also includes the backdrop, and setting where the image is taken. This image has pastel-like colours and is soft on the eye. No saturation is used and it implies a calmness and coldness about this image as there are many greens and blues. In addition due to us seeing the background, the viewer can see the trees obtain no leaves, therefore we know this image is photographed around the colder seasons. Due to the man holding plans this allows us to interpret some of his hobbies/personality. 

I like this image photographed by David Sorrenti. The emotion of happiness is captured in the image, the girl is laughing, with her eyes shut, therefore she is not looking directly at the lens, or away from it. I like that the image is in black and white as it shows the different contrasts in colour (e.g. the girls jacket and hair.) 

My own definition: An image, usually of a persons face, which captures emotion.

• Equipment is used to help project light in photography, shown here in some of the following: 

Honeycomb- this is fixed to the front of a studio strobe, of an off-camera flash. The light shines through the honeycomb grid, creating a tight beam of light. 

Snoot- Is a tube light object which fits over a light, or portable flash, allowing the photographer to direct the direction of the beam of light, and its radius; they can isolate a subject also.