PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAHY

Portrait photography or portraiture is when you capture an image of a person or a small group of people, in which the face and expression are the most predominant.

Even if in the portrait picture the face is the most important, some photographers decide to include the body and background aswell.
A portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the camera.
One of the first portrait photographer that I can mention in this blog is Diane Arbus.
Diane Arbus was an American photographer and writer, famous for her portraits to different people  (giants, nudists and circus perform)
she used to say " I am a photographer of freaks"
She also took portraits of powerfull families, like the Matthaei family portaits.
The Matthaei family were hiring important photographers like Diane Arbus, to take portaits of the family.
Diane spent a lot of time around the Matthaei's villa taking portraits of the family members.
Diane she was particulary interested in the Conrad Matthaei's daughter, Marcella.
She liked taking picture of Marcella in the white dress, she was constantly looking for emotion from the subject in front of the camera.
Diane Arbus committed suicide in the late sixties.
Walker Evans was taking portraits during the depression.
He was always looking for families very poor.
One of his famous picture is called " The Croppers prepared to have their picture done"
In this photo we can see this family ready for having their picture done, so one of them is looking at the camera, the other one looks a bit nervous and so on.
Richard Avedon, probably a genius of the portrait photography, his best pictures were made during the late 40s early 50s.
The great gift of Avedon is that he was capable to make rich and powerful people, look divine.
Another photographer who loved taking picture of famous people, was Tony Vaccaro.
The difference between Richard Avedon and Vaccaro is that Avedon took many pictures of famous people, and he was good to make them look very powerful, while Vaccaro wanted to make famous people look just like other common people, he wanted to capture the essential of their soul.
One of the Tony Vaccaro's famous portrait is the Pablo Picasso one.
Picasso once called him at his place to have is portrait done.
Vaccaro tells that Picasso had the intention to get a picture that would show is power and success.
Tony Vaccaro had no intention in that, so while Picasso was trying to get the perfect pose for his picture, Tony said there was something wrong with the camera; at that moment, Picasso drops this mask and show his real emotions and during that second Vaccaro pressed the shutter.

While others Americans photographers were concentrated in taking portraits of famous people, Larry Clark wanted to take picture about his life.
Larry Clark used to take pictures of him and his friends while they were shooting drugs and playing with guns.

Clark wanted to show a part of the American life that nobody wanted to see.
In 1971 he published a book, Tulsa.
In this book almost all the pictures are indoors and they show a life punctuated by drugs, guns and sex.

Looking at these photographers life, we can understand that the portraits photography has changed so much with the passing of the years.
At the beginning only rich people could afford it.
 During the seventies,  Larry Clark brought the portrait photography to an extreme point, showing sex and drugs.
Nowadays, portrait photography is everywhere, we can make portraits with our digital camera, we usually make portraits of our family or girlfriends and people we care.
Portrait photography is one of the most used technique of our era.