shannon price: the portrait

Defining Beauty Through Avedon

Avedon, a photographer of women, photographed women similarly to modern day fashion photography. He always glorified the model's bodies as a piece of art and never created pieces that were scandalous or otherwise bashing of women. His inspiration came from his younger sister and soon developed into beautiful, one of a kind masterpieces that have been featured in Vogue Magazine. His pieces are always tried to be recreated by other photographers but they never seem to come out the same.

Self-portrait as Obscure Object or Desire

Jack Pierson's book Self Portrait is a collection of images of other naked men. The idea behind the book is to break down one's self image and how it is shaped by celebrity, media, and advertising influences. Futhermore, Pierson explains the desire for all of these wants and how we will never be someone else.

A Pantheon of Arts and Letter in Light and Shadow

Irving Penn photographed significant cultural figures using rich lighting and he minimized the amount of distraction around the subject. This made the subject the main, and only, focus and interest point in the entire photo. He goes deeper into how choosing what you photograph shapes who you are and what you consider important.

Is That Portrait Staring at Me?

Fiona Tan, famous for her video/photo installations, was always pushing the boundaries between film and photography. Her piece with the prison guards and the inmates was particularly powerful to me. As a viewer, the piece was powerful because the live short video of the people makes them more life like compared to a still image.

A Photographer's Lie

Philip Gefter, the author of the book, commented strongly on the creations of Annie Leibovitz. He stated that her pieces that were said to be part of her personal series about herself, was just a bunch of ego boosting shenanigans. 

Embalming the American Dream

Katy Grannan photographed models. But, she is much different than the others taking portraits. She takes alot of time before hand to get to know her subjects and photograph was is important about the subjects whether it be emotional distress or maybe physical inferiority. 

Rosas_Marion_Assignment 8 FINAL

8.1 Goose Ruffling Feathers

8.2 Flower Mid-bloom

8.3 Flowers the Shook in the Breeze

8.4 The Singed Blossom

8.5 Within the Brush

8.6 A Baby Bud

8.7 A Spider at the Center of Its Web

8.8 A Bird with Ruffled Feathers on a Line

The concept of my final project was to photograph elements in my local environment that signaled the coming of springtime. I was very interested in documenting a record of the first signs of the changing seasons that we do not immediately notice amid our studies at the end of winter term. This project forced me to take a few moments to appreciate the small details around me, as well as to view the larger picture instead of just the narrow perspective of finals week. 

This project was strong because it was a risk; I did not have much time to continue debating a theme after having already changed it once, and I did not know whether or not I would be able to find enough clues denoting the changing seasons. It was weak because the areas that I photographed may not have been expansive enough to accurately document the first signs of spring in a well-rounded manner. This also was beneficial, however, because the purpose of the project was to document the changes in my local environment that I would have otherwise missed for being so busy.

I went on several walks through campus and over the footbridge into the forest toward Autzen Stadium, taking photographs of my surroundings. I took approximately three hundred bracketed images of changes that I saw in plant life, people, as well as insect and animal behavior. In the end, I realized that I had learned a lot more about activities that occur in nature when winter changes to spring that I had not recognized beforehand. 

Elora Kelsh Reading Response 4:The Portrait

THE PORTRAIT

Defining Beauty Through Avedon

Avedon was a photographer of women; he was known well for his debonair portraits of women who were famously beautiful in his day, such as Audrey Hepburn and Katharine Hepburn, and featured in magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. The way he captured these photographs were not in a way of demoralizing women, but rather seeing them as a work of art; elongated necks, stylish clothing and jewelry, and graceful poses all contributing his capturing of beauty. He makes the photos seem spontaneous and make women who look at them feel like “yeah, I could look like that too if I had that coat”. I looked up his photography and it is all very beautiful and exemplifies modern day fashion photography, and I think it is very inspirational and effective.

Self-portrait as Obscure Object of Desire

This article was interesting in that it blurred the lines of what self-identity really means in art. The artist Jack Pierson features images of other people who aren’t himself in a collection and titles the group Self Portrait, alluding to the subjects of his artwork encapsulating that which he wishes he could be. The way people look at a photograph and idealize that they themselves were the one that was in it – that is the idea that Pierson captures in his photography. Signature styles like those of Avedon allude to a certain style matching a certain artist, making his group of work essentially art about himself even though the subject is not himself – therefore making something a “self-portrait”. Very interesting stuff indeed!

Is That Portrait Staring at Me?

Fiona Tan’s work is interesting in that she used prisoners as her subjects and titled the piece Correction, correlating to how prisoners are in jail to be corrected. What I really liked was her use of video portrait as opposed to photography; the way that each video clip of a person centered in the frame (like a portrait) but standing completely still created an uncanny feeling. You can still tell that it is a video because of the shifts of the eyeballs, blinking, or rustle of hair in the wind. In a way the prisoners are trapped in the time of their video, just how they are serving time in jail, trapped. I like how the medium of the art and the subjects correlate to each other in that way, it is a very smart move.

A Pantheon of Arts and Letters in Light and Shadow

Irving Penn was a photographer famous for portraiture of celebrities, enough that he became just as famous as the celebrities himself. He started out with the position by working for the magazine Vogue. The way he uses light and shadow to highlight every detail of the subject in the photograph makes the subject seem monumental, like they were Greek statues etched out of stone. He also consideres his client the viewer of the photograph in her magazine at home, rather than the subject; the utmost importance to Penn is that the reader is able to find it intriguing, and to serve her. I particularly enjoy his portrait of Picasso.

A Photographer’s Lie

This was the first article where the writer talked about the photographer negatively. The artist being referred to was Annie Leibovitz and her work titled A Photographer’s Life. In the book she mixes portraits of celebrities ,which she was well known for, with intimate picture of her lover named Susan Sontag. There is hardly any emotional connection to the photos of Sontag even though they were apparently together for 15 years; the book intermixing the personal photos of family and lovers with celebrities makes the photos of celebrities seem like “commercial breaks”. The writer describes Leibovitz as asserting her ego in this book and being unsuccessful in her collection. Harsh, but seems true the way she described it.

Embalming the American Dreamer

Katy Grannan’s photograph collections are interesting, especially her first one where she posted ads in a newspaper for models. The people who responded were mostly young girls out of college, wanting to take photographs as an act of rebellion against their family or boyfriends. Most did secretly when their parents were away, showing how they were not yet women, but still like kids. I found really cool Grannan’s interest in photographing transgender people and her fascination with them as brave enough to change who they fundamentally were and be able to live openly and proudly with that change.

Personal Response

I found it very intriguing how Irvnig Penn said his customer was not the subject he was taking a portrait of, but rather the viewer at home looking at his picture in a magazine. In a way we all are taking photographs for others to look at and please their eye; we want to captivate them with our art. It was also interesting how Avedon sees all his portraits as self-portraits on the high level that he relates to them himself (and I also like how he ties in with the last article in the chapter as well). Overall a collection of very interesting readings concerning Portraiture.

Alandra Chavarria Final Project

For my final collection, I had several ideas that I wanted to execute but after trying them all out, I had to narrow the photos down so they were cohesive and created some sort of a narrative. I have always been ok with randomness and enjoy collections of photos that I have taken that may not relate to each other, so taking a more objective approach and criticizing my own work was a challenge for me. Originally I wanted to do a combination of portraits, interior shots, and exterior shots. After I took all of the photos I had to realize they did not flow or make specific connections that would draw an audience in. I did somewhat stick to my original idea, but refined it a little more. I took interiors of coffee shops and record stores, and exterior shots with my model. My collection ended up consisting of three color exterior shots, and three black and white interior shots. I felt the combination of black and white and color created a tie between modern photography and black and white film photography. I wanted the shots to look raw, relatable, and timeless. I think I achieved this pretty well. It ended up being a collection that took you through the places the model might have been: on the sidewalk, in a record store, against a brick wall, inside a bar and coffee shop, in an alley way, and back inside another cafe. I related it back to the reading by capturing the places I’ve been, and creating a series of moments. I think my photos were also successful representations of Stephen Shore and William Eggleston’s photographic styles. I kept my photos crisp, the framing simple, straight forward, and consistent, always keeping my vantage points in mind. I printed my photos on 8.5x11 sheets of fiber gloss photo paper, for a clean and authentic look. 

I was happy to hear that the viewers wanted to see more photos, like they needed to know where she was going next. I think that means I was successful at creating a collection that made the viewers curious, which is what I love about photography. This definitely taught me how to tell a story through my photos, which was something I used to do when I took film photography in high school, but ever since I started practicing digital photography I stopped using my photos to tell a story, rather collect fragmented memories. 

If I were to improve my collection, I would take a few more shots and add more to the collection. I think it would be neat to expand the collection and create a series of nearly 50 photos and arrange them side by side on the walls around one room, creating a continuous border out of photographs. 

Although I usually take very cropped in shots that reveal the tiniest details in subjects that you wouldn't normally notice, this assignment allowed me to challenge myself to widen my frame and include more information in a photo. I was in my element when taking photos as these locations because these are locations I enjoy photographing, but as for the framing style I think I developed another skill as a photographer. And the fact that I successfully created a series with somewhat of a narrative is another challenge I overcame.