Wednesday, 16 November 2016

How I intend to Approach the Portrait Brief

One of the main things I took from this lecture was that a portrait doesn’t necessarily need to conform to the conventional terms as long as I can justify why my image fits into the category. The term portrait means different things to different people, and no one can really find the words to describe it because it means many different things. On a video we watched people were asked what the term “portrait” means and one replied with “A portrait means different things to different people. It is normally thought to be a representation of a person”[1] The last part of that quote linked to another video we were shown called “The Lab: Decoy, a portrait session with a twist”.[2] There were six photographers all photographing the same man each person was told a different story about the man they were photographing. So in the end result, when all the images were put up and shown together, it looked like they had photographed 6 different people entirely.

In a way it is about how we (as photographers) perceive something and also how we want them to come across in our images that affects how everyone else sees the image.

Although none of the images from photographers that we were shown fit with the work I’m wanting to produce, I think it was helpful in teaching me that a portrait can be anything I want it to be.

I haven’t quite decided how I am going to position my models in my frame yet but the lecture was useful in giving me some ideas to go on. For example, having a central composition that also adheres to the rule of thirds, would be useful and effective within my images. Because I don’t want to include faces within my portraits I think this will work quite well.

Word count: 306
[1] What is a portrait? National Galleries Scotland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7exQDKFg0I
[2] The Lab: Decoy – A portrait session with a twist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TyPfYMDK8


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