Raschka+-+Portrait



=Works of Art Vs. Snapshots= These artists use many techniques that turn their portraits into works of art, rather than snapshots. Generally they use a compositional technique like rule of thirds, fill the frame, and many others. Imogen Cunningham used fill the frame is several of her photographs. Another thing artists focus on is good lighting. In Richard Avedon's portraits he had most of his pictures in black and white but in each photo there was highlights on the faces and it made the portrait much more interesting rather than not have any color and tone variation. By using those techniques it allows for those photos to look more professional and like good portraits.

=Compositional Techniques= The first image is by Imogen Cunningham and it is called Aiko, she used the rule of thirds in her photo to make the image more interesting and you were able to see the shadow of the girl. Additionally she used natural light from what seems to be the sun to make the highlights and different tones in the image. []

The second image is by Richard Avedon and he filled the frame by only including Pablo's face rather than having the background. He used artificial light to make the highlights and lowlights on Pablo's face. []

Finally the third image is by Arnold Newman and he used the rule of thirds to include the clutter and background in the photo. This helps show a background story of the women's life rather than allowing the viewer to make the story up. This photographer used artificial lighting for this photo, most likely from the ceiling lights. []

=Analysis= The works of Imogen Cunningham, Julia Margaret, and Arnold Newman remind me of the times before I really new how to work with lighting and the compositional techniques because there is such a big difference between a photo that uses those techniques and one that does not.

The portraits that these artists have taken and the techniques they have used have shown me proper examples of well shot portraits that are interesting and beautiful. Arnold Nelson showed great examples of compositional techniques it is influencing me by showing me that using those techniques really does pay off and help the portrait, and really all photos overall.