Works in Progress - Portraits

Arthur Tress

From 1962-66, Mr. Tess traveled throughout Europe as well as through Egypt, Mexico, Japan and India, documenting the culture and customs of each place. He was fascinated by the roles that the shaman, the range of beliefs and practices to communicate with the spiritual world, within the cultures would play. Ultimately this played a large role in influencing his later works. Several of his portraits have a sense of surrealism - this one, Bride and Groom, is an extreme example. I think the intent of this photo is a statement of how the bride and groom, once married, become an "item." They become one. These two people could be thought of simultaneously - you mention one person and automatically think of the other. It's a gain and a lost of identity. It looks like the figure is standing inside a church, which strengthens the intent of this photo driving toward the message of what results from marriage. What makes this portrait good is not only the use of contrast between lights and darks so that the figure stands out against the background, but also how the figure is expressed as two people. The figure is standing at the center and creating a strange balance. It is an asymmetrical balance through the figure, but it's through this that creates the implication of two separate people. If the figure was off to one side of the frame, the effect wouldn't be nearly as strong.

Quote Responses

"My portraits are more about me than the people I photograph."

- Richard Avedon

When I photograph someone, I try to capture an aspect of them that everyone would recognize. But, I also try to do so in my personal style (which has been changing a lot lately, but what is most pleasing to me is what I do).

"You don't take a photograph, you make it."

- Ansel Adams

You literally do take photos. But, from a somewhat-philosophical point of view, you are making them - the angle you take, where the light is coming from, and all those little details are what create a photo. In portraits, it is the people, in my personal opinion, who are what really make the photo.

"All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it."

- John Berger

With a painter's eye, he (or she) is showing the world how they see. It goes through their own personal filter - how they grew up and where they grew up and with who they grew up with will affect this filter. Which is when art historians come in and interpret everything that the artist did to depict how they saw the world at that moment. Through the photograph, it is more likely that the viewer will view the photo as they see it, and not how the photographer saw it.

Blog Responses - Portraits

"Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man."

- Edward Steichen

I had to look up "gamut" which is defined by dictionary.com as, "the entire scale or range" - and photography most certainly records the entire range of human emotion as it appears on the face. I've probably seen nearly every kind of feeling on a face in a photograph, and if I haven't the camera has the ability to capture it, with the right timing.

Photography can be difficult to explain in detail, because there is so much that we can do with it.

"I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul."

- Mary Ellen Mark

I don't think that you take some of their soul, but rather that you are preserving some of it. Some of the best photos I've taken (many which happen to be my favorites as well) are candid shots, capturing their natural selves (which are so much better than a fake self).

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In your opinion, when is it beneficial, ethnical, or appropriate to digitally alter photographic portraits? When do you think it's inappropriate or ethnically wrong?

I think it is beneficial and appropriate to digitally alter a photograph when it enhances the photograph - altering the elements of a photo (composition, contrast, etc) in a way that makes the photo better, more appealing to the viewer, would definitely be a good thing. Or when the photographer is trying to create a mood by adjusting the tone of the photo, to get an idea across.

It is definitely not ethnical to digitally alter a photograph when it sets up a situation that implies something false about a person - a risque photo could imply that someone is a floosy, when that person is not that at all. Photos can be altered moments that create false impressions of the person in the portrait.

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Pay close attention to the types and number of photographic portraits you see in one day. Where did you see them? How do you think that the content of the portrait changes based on the context in which you see the image (news, facebook, magazine, advertisement, television, youtube, etc)? In other words, what is the difference between the portraits you see on facebook vs. those on the news? What is the difference between the "viewpoint" of the photographer in each situation? What is the difference between their "intents"?

I see portraits everywhere - advertising has been a major one, but Facebook is probably the one that I see the most often. I'm always looking at photos on Facebook. Flickr is another place that I see portraits; I look through Flickriver a lot to see what's interesting that day and I'll see hundreds of portraits.

The content of the portrait does change based on the context we see it in - a portrait on a Facebook profile is much more personal than a portrait that we see in an advertisement or a magazine.

Facebook profile photos are to show the best side of ourselves - at an event we enjoy, laughing or wearing a really awesome costume or doing something epic. They try to show a positive side of ourselves, a side that everyone would want to get to know. The portraits that we see on the news are to try to show the person as they truly are so that anyone can recognize them on the spot, to find them for whatever reason (be it a criminal for murder or to a kidnapped child).

This photo was inspired by the photography on fredandassociates.com, with the portraits done by Cass Bird.

Specifically this.

Assignment I

For this photo I did a close crop of my face with just a little peek of my shoulder showing. The photo was inspired by the concept of contrast, specifically by the work of (specific photographer here). Her use of contrast seemed subtle, yet still brought out specific details that were most important in the photo. I tested various angles of taking the photo of myself while sitting in the tree, and after about every 5-10 shots I would check and see what looked interesting. I am always looking for a way to create interesting self portraits, and I believe that this was a success.

This photo depicts bottle caps that have been tied and attached to a bike basket. I just came across this as I was coming to class and snapped a few shots. I feel that this goes well with the simplicity that I intended. It just documents something of everyday life, something that someone did to make their bike more interesting. The composition will lead your eye directly to the bottle cap in the middle of the left side, and lead your eye across the right side of the photo.

This is a portrait of my friend Breyer, inspired by the concept (concept). I had her stand out in the hall of the dorm that I live in and used a large aperture and a fairly quick shutter speed to capture her hair flip in the slightly dim lighting. I had her do this several times before we got this shot.

"Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be."

- Duane Michals

I agree and disagree with this quote - I feel that photography is a form of a documentation, and documentation deals with fact and truth. But, photography can also be distorted, with bokeh and different uses of lenses and various angles to distort proportion. In editing, it can be distorted via color and contrast. Even when two people look at the same photo, they can draw different stories from it.

"If I could tell a story with words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera."

- Lewis Hine

I do not agree with this quote, because there are just some things that you cannot express with words. It could be the size of something - you simply cannot capture the impressiveness of the Grand Canyon or the pyramids on a postcard, or even on a photo that covers an entire wall. It is

just too much for a photo to convey properly. Even the facial expressions of someone cannot be properly expressed with words, hence why we say, "You should have seen your face!"

Words reveal the story when setting a scene or mood by providing descriptions, but not everyone knows the meanings of all the words used in those descriptions (I have on several occasions gone to the dictionary to look up the meaning of a word). With images, you see the scene and the mood, and can have a fairly good grasp on what's going on (unless the photographer was subtle about setting up the scene).

Into The Door

I was given Yves Klein's photomontage "Leap Into The Void" - I ran with a juxtaposed idea of an implication of a girl walking through a door. "The Void" stuck with me, so the door is a representation of that. Walking into the unknown.

I'd like to try a photomontage in a future project - Klein actually was leaping off the side of a building, onto some sort of cushion, and pieced his photos together in a way to create this crazy scene of him leaping off the side of a building into nothing.

An interesting fact about Klein and this photo in particular - "The Void" is his Zen-influenced concept, of being "felt" and "understood" at the same time.

"Photograph"

Imagine a world without photographs. Describe what this world would be like.

A world without photographs would be a world full of paintings. Photographs have become the new and quicker way to document life, paintings were the old way. Paintings have now become a luxury, photographs the necessity. I feel like our lives would slow down.

What does the word "photograph" mean to you?

The word "photograph" would be a synonym to "memory" for me. It's a moment in time that was frozen, and you can take that out and look at it and remember that moment. And it's not distorted, in a way. It records everything as it was - our memories about a particular event have a tendency to change over time. So if you forget about something, you can pull out the memory and look to see what was the color of the shirt you were wearing, or if it was your boyfriend that you were with, or if it was raining that day.

That's the main thing for photographs for me. They can be art and illusions too, but being a memory is the most important to me.