Our third mini-tasks introduces us to the world of portrait photography. For our inspiration we received three really different artists, that have worked with portrait in really different ways. The first one is
Platon (born 1968), famous for his studio portraits of powerful and well-knowns subject, like Putin, Obama or Snowden, that appeared on many influential magazine's covers like
Wired and
Times Magazine.
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| Platon, Vladimir Putin, c.2008 |
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| Platon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, c.2010 |
Because he shoots in studio Platon can control everything; from the lighting, to the pose and the props. These three elements tell many things about the subject and define the mood and the emotions the viewer will experience. Another predominant feature in Platon's portraits is the central presence of the subject's eyes, that magnetically attract the viewer and give further informations about the subject. He uses other techniques - like foreshortening (perspective distortion) - and particular poses to magnify the sense of power and importance of the subjects.
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Platon, Micheal Bloomberg, c.2010
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The second artist is a completely different one:
Bill Cunningham (born 1929). He is a fashion photographer for the
New York Times and he is best known for his candid and street photography. For 50 years Bill with his blue jacket and his bike has explored the street of New York and has photographed people - usually not celebrities and not posing people - focusing on their clothing and personal style. With his editorials and photographs he has created a visual history - 50 years long - of New York's styles and trends. Toady he produces weekly themed editorials for the
New York Times photographing many subject wearing particular type of clothes, with same colors or patterns.
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| Bill Cunningham, Grr published on the New York Times, 2011 |
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| Bill Cunningham, Swells published on the New York Times, 2011 |
The third artist, the one that intrigued me the most, is
Lee Friedlander (born 1934). He is a street photographer, a flexible artist that loves experimentation. He is best know for his work with the Mannequins and the shop windows, where he uses reflections to disorient the viewer and to add a layer of mystery to the whole composition.
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| Lee Friedlander, Tucson, 2011 |
In Friedlander's pictures the urban landscape that surrounds the subject plays a central role. His pictures dense with objects are less intuitive and immediate than those of Cunningham and Platon, and require the viewer to pause on the details and to examine the photo carefully. In a lot of his works the face of the main subject cannot be seen, that adds mystery to the photo and emphasize body language and other details in the composition. He has also experimented with self portraits and the use of mirrors in his most recent works.
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| Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1963 |
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| Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1967 |
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| Lee Friedlander, New Orleans, 1996 |
All his pictures in the 60's had a precise scope: to document the evolving american social landscape. Being a street photographer, unlike Platon, he can't control much when taking pictures. Subject cannot pose, light cannot change; his photos are all about right timing and capturing the decisive moment.
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Lee Friedlander, Chicago, 1968
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