PORTRAITS
For this unit, we had two portrait assignments: the first was portraits of a family or friend, where I dressed up my friend Lucia in a vintage dress and stockings and tried to tell the story of a manic 50s/60s housewife going crazy, stuck in her traditional feminine role. The second assignment was a type of self-portrait called an "unselfie," which usually has some part of the "self" excluded or masked. For my unselfies, I was very inspired by the photographer Cindy Sherman. I decided to dress myself up with a lot of heavy makeup and a super long blonde wig to portray a wild alter-ego version of me. In all of my photos, I really enjoyed playing with the framing and composition. I noticed that I really like to have my subject off-centered, and gazing off to the side, creating a candid feeling (although they were all totally posed.) My favorite portrait out of my portfolio is probably the one of Lucia squatting on the roof. I think it really captured the raw emotion that I was trying to create with this shoot and the character of the subject. In my opinion, the most important part of taking a portrait is telling a story about the person being photographed. Being able to capture who someone is through a photo is one of the most powerful things about photography.
Portrait Analysis
