Ashley+H+Portrait+A4

The artist that shot all three of these photos is Steve McCurry.
-Portrait 1: Steve McCurry used the compositional techinque of leading lines because the African boy's arms lead your eyes into his face, which is the main focal point because his face shows a lot of emotion, which I think McCurry was trying to capture. I feel like McCurry used natural lighting because he used outside lighting. McCurry had taken this portrait in Timbuktu, Mali in 1987. McCurry tried to portray what it is like to be the little boy. His portraits mainly portray a certain experience etched onto a being's face. @http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php (portrait in his gallery folder and is number 48 in his portrait folder.)

-Portrait 2: Steve McCurry used the compositional techniques of rule of thirds, fill the frame and leading lines. There is something happening in all thirds of the photo; however, the subject is mainly in the middle of the frame but what looks to be her father is cut out of the frame. Her father's hand along the subject create your eyes to focus at her sad face. I think McCurry's choice is to use natural lighting because it seems like all of his portraits are taken outdoors. This photo was taken in 1990 in Feyzabad, Afghanistan. The meaning behind this photo was that McCurry was covering the war that had taken place when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan and he had taken photographs in a hospital for the mentally ill. Most of his photographs covered vicitms of more then a decade long war and were people who didn't have doctors, electricity and running water. His portrait depicted the emotion in the victims after the war ended. @http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php (this portrait is in the Afghanistan folder in his gallery and is the sixth photo).

-Portrait 3: McCurry captured women dancing which created his compositional techniques of level horizon, leading lines and focal point. His focal point obviously were on the women dancing, but their dresses created leading lines because most of them look like they're flowing which creates the looker to feel a sense of movement. The level horizon comes from the trees in the background that are completely level and same with the angle of the sand. Once again, McCurry used outside lighting, which created that warm feeling because it brought out all of the warm colors of the sand and the horizon and their dresses. This portrait was taken in 1983 in Rajasthan, India. His trip to India included huge sand storm that built up, but while the sand storm was building, women and children worked on a road. When the wind picked up, the women and children huddled together to shield themselves from the sand. While this sand storm was occurring, McCurry was taking pictures of the women as they sang and prayed for their lives. @http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php (this portrait is in his India folder in his gallery and is the sixth photo).