Assignment: Post 3-5 portraits that you really like to your blog. Be sure to credit the source in each instance. Please write a few sentences about the images and why you like them. Who made the portrait? Who is sitting in the portrait? What makes it unique?
Ive been following a photojournalist named Tom Brenner for a while now and I wanted to highlight two of his photos here:
The first is a portrait of Joe Biden with his eyes cut off. I think it is one of those great portraits where the eyes are excluded to highlight another feature of the subject. Biden is known for a being a very smiley and cozy kind of person. I think this is Tom’s attempt to portray Biden with just using a smile to depict his essential character. I think its a rather unique composition.
The second portrait is of current USA president Donald Trump during what I assume is a press conference or gathering of some sort. You can see Tom again cut off most of the presidents eyes in the portrait to highlight his mouth and spit coming out during his speech, possibly to depict his character of always being a loud mouth/always wanting to speak ( twitter being a great example ). I think the composition is perfect to highlight this one unique feature of the subject and thus potentially also depicting him in a unique way where we learn something about him just from an image.
There are two other portraits I recently saw by a tour photographer Haley Lan. He does tour photography for an artist called San Holo and others on a label called Bitbird.
I might be a bit biased here since I enjoy the music of both of these artists but I think these are two great portraits.
The first one of San Holo feels very peaceful. You can’t see his eyes as if he is hiding away from you with his body turned just slightly what feels like a very soft stroke of his beard. The photo makes me feel at peace but also has a hint of sadness to it.
The second photo is of Eastghost. I really like the use of the mirror, almost like showing both sides of the subject (both literally and figuratively).
Im not sure if it was posed but I like that he is looking away from the camera, almost pointing with his eyes to his reflection in the mirror.