A portrait is a photograph, painting or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face or body’s expression is the most predominant feature. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.
One such portrait artist is the photographer, Steve Rosenfield. He was a regular working man who decided to take up photography as a pursuit of happiness, leaving his job to do so. He began to photograph people with their flaws written on them. This started off as a social experiment and turned into a global movement about honesty and empowerment. Rosenfield states “In today’s society, we are often told to look or act a certain way. If we differ from these ‘standards,’ we are often judged, ridiculed, bullied and sometimes even killed over them.”. The project is about self-empowerment with or without flaws. This is evident in all of his images as they all contain a written flaw. The written flaws all vary from physical attributes such as; I know I’m ugly, I have a big nose, will surgery fix me, keep it short. However most of the ‘flaws’ are mental questions people ask themselves or simply statements of how they see themselves as flaws yet aren’t evident to anyone else. These are things such as; the child no one wanted, I am not my brain tumour, I’ll never achieve my dreams. When I look at these images I see the message that he is trying to represent I feel as though they represent society as a whole which appeals to everyone as it is representative of society therefore the work is less to do with the individual in the photograph and more about society as a whole. Statistics show that “1 in 6 people suffer from mental health issues worldwide”1, in the “UK 25% suffer”2 this is a huge proportion of society. There are around “4,400 suicides each year that’s 1 every 2 hours, around 10 times this amount attempt suicide and don’t succeed.”3 This is incredibly disturbing to thing a lot of these mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia all of which are related to a negative body image.
The images themselves all fit together well as they are all lit well with the same background. The use of photographic lighting enables the person in the image to me lit well giving detail to the image it also enables clarity of the words written on them and the expressions. The fact that the backgrounds are all plain and white gives more emphasis on the foreground which is the person this is where the message in he image is portrayed therefore this is important. However every image is not identically composed, each person has a different expression as their individual faces are all unique yet all faces are the focus of the images as they are all close up images where the chest upwards fits the frame. There is variation between the positioning of each model and their arms. For some just a simple portrait positioned looking straight at the camera with tops of shoulders showing however some have their hands on their face or holding them up at the sides or even arms wrapped over the top resting on their head, each giving Rosenfield a different body part for him to write their flaws, this along with central, right or left alignment gives each image something different. The models themselves are all different genders, ages, races and sexuality making the project extremely interesting this makes the shoot more relatable as whatever the target audience of the shoot they have something in common with at least one model.
An alternative example of a portrait artist is fine artist, Mark Gilbert. Gilbert’s project is called ‘saving faces’. This project was in response to a programme set up by Professor Iain Hutchison who was a Consultant at Royal London Hospital. Gilbert was an Artist-in-residence in Hutchison’s surgical department. His paintings aim to “show that people with facial disability are able to enjoy happy, successful and fulfilled lives”. Gilbert took images of his patients before and after surgery and sometimes during it. This to me gives the project a real strength and sense of uncensored content, the images are all extremely graphical, encouraging the viewer to empathise. The purpose of the images are to “capture the changing emotions and character of the patients as they experienced one of their most traumatic events in life” the traumas they suffer are linked directly to their physical defects both facial and body deformity this can in some cases cause mental illnesses as well as physical. The Images are so raw they are immediately capturing the eye and draw you in to want to learn more and to me this is important for images of this nature as it raises awareness. It does this by forcing the viewer to confront a sight that would normally be purposefully ignored.
When it comes to the art itself, most were hand painted with oil paints however Glbert also does some pencil on paper sketches. All the images have a common theme; bright colours used to compose the image. There is a lot of red incorporated obviously as it’s the type of colour you’d expect from a surgery or a wound as it represents blood, there’s also bright yellows perhaps represents infection. These colours together are both eye catching and draw you in. The sketches he has produced contain a slight dusting of colour (red in particular) the artist used a resource such as water colours to create transparent colour therefore the focus remained on the sketch. All the artwork is portraiture work, the people incorporated are all physically deformed in some way. The artist uses warm tones on colour in the images on the skin tones this is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than cool tones, warm tones may also suggest ‘life’ whereas the cooler the image the more closely related to ‘death’ they may appear. However, the background in all his paintings are cool toned pastels this uses up the negative space without drowning out the foreground, the cool tones compliment the warm toned focal point. The focal point of the paintings are the people within them, there is great diversity between each person as they all have different physical defects. This giving the images character so it’s better distinguished between them this makes people want to continue looking as they feel they aren’t looking at the same images. One thing that all the images do have in common are the expressions of the people’s faces (if they are in the image). All expressions are dull and emotive, they show how the people are suffering throughout every image. An individuality of some paintings is the inclusivity of hospital equipment , this gives them a more interesting difference which also places them into the context of having medical treatment for their deformity. The sketches he has done are of the operating theatre and the equipment and occasionally people this makes them different again. The structure of all his paintings vary from close up of the defect to full length portrait or event just a head and shoulder portrait, he also paints his subject from different angles as some people are facing directly at the camera and some are from side profile.
One such portrait artist is the photographer, Steve Rosenfield. He was a regular working man who decided to take up photography as a pursuit of happiness, leaving his job to do so. He began to photograph people with their flaws written on them. This started off as a social experiment and turned into a global movement about honesty and empowerment. Rosenfield states “In today’s society, we are often told to look or act a certain way. If we differ from these ‘standards,’ we are often judged, ridiculed, bullied and sometimes even killed over them.”. The project is about self-empowerment with or without flaws. This is evident in all of his images as they all contain a written flaw. The written flaws all vary from physical attributes such as; I know I’m ugly, I have a big nose, will surgery fix me, keep it short. However most of the ‘flaws’ are mental questions people ask themselves or simply statements of how they see themselves as flaws yet aren’t evident to anyone else. These are things such as; the child no one wanted, I am not my brain tumour, I’ll never achieve my dreams. When I look at these images I see the message that he is trying to represent I feel as though they represent society as a whole which appeals to everyone as it is representative of society therefore the work is less to do with the individual in the photograph and more about society as a whole. Statistics show that “1 in 6 people suffer from mental health issues worldwide”1, in the “UK 25% suffer”2 this is a huge proportion of society. There are around “4,400 suicides each year that’s 1 every 2 hours, around 10 times this amount attempt suicide and don’t succeed.”3 This is incredibly disturbing to thing a lot of these mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia all of which are related to a negative body image.
The images themselves all fit together well as they are all lit well with the same background. The use of photographic lighting enables the person in the image to me lit well giving detail to the image it also enables clarity of the words written on them and the expressions. The fact that the backgrounds are all plain and white gives more emphasis on the foreground which is the person this is where the message in he image is portrayed therefore this is important. However every image is not identically composed, each person has a different expression as their individual faces are all unique yet all faces are the focus of the images as they are all close up images where the chest upwards fits the frame. There is variation between the positioning of each model and their arms. For some just a simple portrait positioned looking straight at the camera with tops of shoulders showing however some have their hands on their face or holding them up at the sides or even arms wrapped over the top resting on their head, each giving Rosenfield a different body part for him to write their flaws, this along with central, right or left alignment gives each image something different. The models themselves are all different genders, ages, races and sexuality making the project extremely interesting this makes the shoot more relatable as whatever the target audience of the shoot they have something in common with at least one model.
An alternative example of a portrait artist is fine artist, Mark Gilbert. Gilbert’s project is called ‘saving faces’. This project was in response to a programme set up by Professor Iain Hutchison who was a Consultant at Royal London Hospital. Gilbert was an Artist-in-residence in Hutchison’s surgical department. His paintings aim to “show that people with facial disability are able to enjoy happy, successful and fulfilled lives”. Gilbert took images of his patients before and after surgery and sometimes during it. This to me gives the project a real strength and sense of uncensored content, the images are all extremely graphical, encouraging the viewer to empathise. The purpose of the images are to “capture the changing emotions and character of the patients as they experienced one of their most traumatic events in life” the traumas they suffer are linked directly to their physical defects both facial and body deformity this can in some cases cause mental illnesses as well as physical. The Images are so raw they are immediately capturing the eye and draw you in to want to learn more and to me this is important for images of this nature as it raises awareness. It does this by forcing the viewer to confront a sight that would normally be purposefully ignored.
When it comes to the art itself, most were hand painted with oil paints however Glbert also does some pencil on paper sketches. All the images have a common theme; bright colours used to compose the image. There is a lot of red incorporated obviously as it’s the type of colour you’d expect from a surgery or a wound as it represents blood, there’s also bright yellows perhaps represents infection. These colours together are both eye catching and draw you in. The sketches he has produced contain a slight dusting of colour (red in particular) the artist used a resource such as water colours to create transparent colour therefore the focus remained on the sketch. All the artwork is portraiture work, the people incorporated are all physically deformed in some way. The artist uses warm tones on colour in the images on the skin tones this is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than cool tones, warm tones may also suggest ‘life’ whereas the cooler the image the more closely related to ‘death’ they may appear. However, the background in all his paintings are cool toned pastels this uses up the negative space without drowning out the foreground, the cool tones compliment the warm toned focal point. The focal point of the paintings are the people within them, there is great diversity between each person as they all have different physical defects. This giving the images character so it’s better distinguished between them this makes people want to continue looking as they feel they aren’t looking at the same images. One thing that all the images do have in common are the expressions of the people’s faces (if they are in the image). All expressions are dull and emotive, they show how the people are suffering throughout every image. An individuality of some paintings is the inclusivity of hospital equipment , this gives them a more interesting difference which also places them into the context of having medical treatment for their deformity. The sketches he has done are of the operating theatre and the equipment and occasionally people this makes them different again. The structure of all his paintings vary from close up of the defect to full length portrait or event just a head and shoulder portrait, he also paints his subject from different angles as some people are facing directly at the camera and some are from side profile.