“Portrait photography is photographing a person or group of people that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person’s face” [1]

Cecil Beaton specialised in fashion and portraiture photography and is regarded as the “greatest fashion photographer of his time”. Some of his most well known photographs are of icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy. He is a great example of fashion photography due to his portraits of famous women e.g. Audrey Hepburn taken in a “sophisticated” manner.  The inspiration behind his work was supposedly postcards he viewed as a child of famous actresses at the time, in particular Lily Elsie.
His work focuses on the beauty and form of the women herself while using relevant props and backgrounds, which is something I also intend to do when we are allowed in the studio. Here are some examples of his work:

Another example of traditional portraiture is Annie Leibovitz, she is renowned for her Vanity Fair and Rolling Stones covers. She was the woman who photographed John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the 1981 Rolling Stones cover.

Within the Angelina Jolie photograph it is clear that she strives in black and white photography. Her style appears very minimalist which is achieved due to the fact the background and her shirt are black so that the focus is completely on Angelina. It may also be because of the lighting, but seeing as I haven’t done the workshop yet I don’t know which type of light creates that kind of effect. A lot of the facial expressions appear neutral, which is something I can replicate when taking my own photos.

For this brief we were told to take three separate images; a self portrait, a family member or friend and a stranger. They didn’t all need to be shot in the studio or under professional settings (it just may look better).

I’ll have to look through some self portraits another time to get a decent one, but for friends and family members I took photos of my brother outside of the cathedral grounds;

I haven’t edited the photos yet, but I think these could be a decent beginning.

I also took photos of my boyfriend, but I focused more on the lighting; so the fairy lights in the photo tend to be more dominant which I like.

I edited these photos and used them because I wanted to show an array of lighting. I personally however, don’t think the black and white photo is very good due to the noise of the photo giving it a weird sad ambience. I do like the first two though and I think I will continue to edit my other photos of him accordingly. I may also invest in a tripod if I wanted to focus more on the lighting aspect of the photos as I want to get the highest quality photo I can, with little blur.

For a self portrait I quite like this one I took when I was with my family:

I took this in an antique shop and you can see my brother in the background, I think the photo is cute but it may not be suited for this brief as I want to try and make my photos look professional.