Portraiture

Portratit photography was mainly used by royalty. They started with the affluent people getting paintings of portraits but as the camera became more popular more everyday people began to take portrait photos or have portrait photo's taken. Portrait photography is when the photograph is focused on the person or person's facial expressions. The objectives to portrait photography are to display personality and mood of the subject or person. A portrait photograph is when the focus is on the person face although their body may be included. Also in a portrait photograph the person tends to look directly into the camera and are in a still postion, not a snap shot.

Portrait photography is usally used for peoples personal uses such as family events or school photographs. It doesnt have to have models or be put in garerllies, they are for people to have for themselves. Today, portrait photography is used for public use such as leaflets or authors photographs on the back of books.

Portraiture became popular after the daguerrrotype in the late 1900's. When portrait photography began the photographer would just use a plain background a minamal lighting from overhead windows or they would use anything that could be reflected using mirrors. As technolgoy became more advanced the styles of portrait photography grew and has become more creative. While technology was growing the photographers would become more exprimental and take photo's outside of the studio.

There are many portrait photographers, such as Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Richard Avedon, Tony Vaccaro and Larry Clark. Each of these photographers had a different style of protraiture. Diane Arbus took many different portrait photographs but spent most of her time working with people who were classed as differnt from the rest of society. These people were dwarfs, giant, transvestites, nudiest and circus preformers. Some poeple have been known to call Arbus 'the photographer of freaks'. Arbus's work has previously been sold for thousands of dollars but it also causes lots of controvasy. Because Arubus was so quite people would be drawn into what she had to say and this made people more intresed in her work.

Tony Vaccaro was a photograher and a solidor, he photographed during the second world war and then after the war he became a fashion photograher for a U.S magazine

Larry Clark is an American photographer who best known for his book Tulsa. The book is about the young people in Tulsa Oklahoma. The book shows how the young people would shoot illegal drugs, have under age sex and were violent. The people of Tulsa were always known as good people and people didnt know that such acts would be done there untill the book was released and the proof was in the photographs. Clark says that when he would take a photo he would take it against the light and there is not a straight photo in the book.

Fashion Photography

Although phototgraphy began in the 1830's fashion photography didnt start until 1856 when Adolphe Braun published a book which contain 288 photo's of Virginia Oldoini. This made Virginia the first fashion model. Fashion photography made it's first appearance in French magazines such as 'La mode Partique'. in 1911 painter and photographer Edward Steichen was dared to promote fashion as a fine art by the use of photography. These photographers were published in the 1911 issue of ' Art et Decoration'. This photo shoot is now considered to be the first ever fashion photography shoot. Fashion photography is displaying the clothing and accsesories. It is mainly used for advertising purposes in magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Grazia and Vanity Fair.

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Techniques of Arbus

Diane Arbus started photography when she was 18 and took many photo's during hyer time working as a photographer. Her work was unique as she took photo's of people who are classed as not part of society based on people's sexuality, the way people dressed, mental illness's, depression, drug use and people who are just different. When she was photographing children she would spend a lot of time with the children to get to know them and to get the photo's that she wanted to get. Her photo's were not flattering but they were intresting and this got people wanting to see her work. She also spoke very quitely, this meant people would lean in to listen to what she was saying and she didnt have to shout to get her point across. unfortunately in 1971 Diane Arbus took her own life but still to this day people are intrested in her work and talk about her and they way she photographed people.