I think it's safe to say we all very much enjoy portraiture, considering it's rare we review prints or slides and someone doesn't have a person in at least one of their photographs.
Lately, while hypothesizing ideas for a project, i've come to realize just how many different ways there are to capture people.
There's the informal portrait, self-portrait, street (stranger) portrait, formal portrait, character portrait, fashion portrait, and the list goes on.
Some seem more real, some more raw, and some more fantastical.
Either way they all involve people and capturing something about them, whether it be their personality, their hobbies, or simply aesthetic attributes that we find beautiful.
_______
A few days ago I went to that panel discussion with the three candid street photographers and there was one comment that stood out to me. They all agreed that street photography was the hardest of all photographic genres. They justified their claim by explaining how there is no prior set-up— the moment exists, and then it's gone. On your feet and on the move you have to construct a composition with ample lighting and capture the shot, all without interfering with the scene.
This is obviously a strong argument and goes along with conversations we had in CHIPS last semester, but I'm curious what people's thoughts are now that we've had time to try our hand at shooting on the street.
On another note, Matt Stuart explained how he goes out every day and shoots roughly 3-4 rolls, accumulating over a thousand images throughout the course of the year. However, at the end of this 365 day run he admitted that he only has at most 4 pictures he is truly happy with.
Would you say it's possible he's too critical, or is he a perfectionist and simply extracts the poignant and exemplary shots, or perhaps even, he's not a "good" photographer and simply gets lucky every once in a while?
_______
But back to the point of this entry, the portrait, I feel I've just begun to explore each one of these realms and thought I might post some of my examples of each. I think it's interesting to note the different 'feel' each of these styles presents, it's extremely diverse.
I also think this is a good opportunity to start pushing forth with Dennis' idea of posting our recent photographs / slides to the blog to get further critique.
Slides from this past weekend (Informal portraiture):
Self-Portraiture from last week (it's chalk):
Formal (winter break):
Fashion...ish (winter break):
