One Week Sketch

Your assignment is to create a series of 5 portraits that consider portraiture in a creative, original manner. Your images should show an understanding of the conventions of portraiture by using them or breaking them in the quest for originality. Your series should not be purely aesthetic in nature, but should be bound by an underlying idea or concept.

Example Artists: Loretta Lux, David Hilliard, Pinar Yolacan, Helen Van Meene, Nancy Burson, Jake Rowland, Yasuma Morimora, Jason Salavon

Josh Cerf

      In creating these photos the primary goal I was trying to achieve was demonstrate at least one quality of the subjects personality.  There are many classic photographs that give off a fake sense of happiness or false confidence in a staged set up with an unnatural smile or perfectly set staging, but those are both untrue and unoriginal.  On my pursuit to create five original photographs that teach the viewer about true qualities of the subject, I came up with these.

Ying Yi Chen

The first portraiture is a combination of three different pictures. It is a reinterpretation of David Hilliard’s works. I am trying to show an extended motion in the picture on the left by using a low shutter speed. The one on the right hand side shows a stopped motion with high shutter speed. Moreover, it is kind of interesting because it is a portraiture taken near others’ portraitures. The reason why I made this photo is that, by combining few pieces of art works, I am able to show different formal elements of photography in one picture at the same time. In addition, a magic effect can be reached by combining, that is, the field of version can be expanded since these few pictures are taken in a similar environment.
The second portraiture is also a combination of different pieces. However, it is different from the normal portraitures which usually show face and ¾ part of body in the photo. Mine work just shows an important part of the body of human beings, ears. This picture can be interpreted as we should always learn how to listen to others’ opinions rather than ignoring others’ voices. Also, this picture can be interpreted as gossips are widespread since almost everybody is interested in paying attention to what’s going on in the daily life, especially in the campus.
The last three pictures are in a series of funny faces. The picture 03 with a cute background is a reinterpretation of Loretta Lux. I am trying to combine a real photography with a painting. The tool of blur really helps a lot to soften the edges of the portraiture with the background. The last two photos are combination of two funny faces changed within two seconds. Lighting and shadow are the two important elements in these pictures. In picture 04, it shows a same lighting condition, while, it shows a different lighting condition in picture 05.

Ziying Chen

Eyes and hands, which implicit sight and touch, are two critical senses of human.
When we endow those senses with exact meanings, we are losing them at the same time.
It is just like if an object forms a stable frame in your mind, it becomes real, and began to lose the flexibility of the originality as well.
Hands hide the eyes, and touch substitutes sight.
We need purer senses.
We are seeing in nature since we have a pure mind.
Just like the fourth picture,eyes in the mind could cross the palms ,in order to seeing objects farther away.
That is the theme of my project.

Francesca DeLuca

For my project I chose to take a Hobart Lacrosse player and prove that there is more to him than just the stereotypical jock.  When describing the lacrosse players here at Hobart and William Smith Colleges only one description comes to mind, they play lacrosse.  By asking Evan a series of personal questions I am trying to expose another side to such a stereotype.  Image one is a picture of Evan Kirk; I chose to just do his face as the first image so the viewer knows who the piece is about.  In the next images you cannot see Evan’s face, only facts about him.  This is crucial effect for the images.  It is expressing what there is to know about him, not putting a “face to the game”.  After the last slide if you keep rotating through the images it goes right back to Evan’s face.  By showing the first slide and the last slide right after another creates a sense that the slides can be viewed from one to five or backwards, five to one.  The in-between slides are in no particular order.  What I like about this project is the fact that even though there is importance to the order there is not at the same time.  It gives the feeling of fluidity that is also shown in the game of lacrosse. 

Emily Desmery

In my Portraiture section I tried to apply different techniques to my piece. In Images01.jpg I took inspiration from the National Geographic picture and I put my face over her face. In Images02.jpg I took inspiration from various things and tried to make the background as bland as possible. In Images03.jpg I played a little bit with depth of field so that my feet look bigger than my body. Images04.jpg I put my face in the Mona Lisa. And in Images05.jpg I played with Colors to change my picture.

Brittany Flaherty

For my portraiture project, which is entitled, "Eyes of the World", I wanted to use one of the most expressive aspects of the face in order to capture emotion. Thinking about the fact that the eyes are referred to as the "windows of the soul", I decided to photograph the eyes of women of different ethnicities in order to highlight different eye structures, colors, and gazes. I made sure that all of the pictures were taken in similar lighting situations so that they would look fluid, and always from the right side of the subject's face so that when two eyes were put together, it would look slightly off and capture the viewer’s attention. I also tried to crop the two pictures so that the eyes would be about the same size, in order to showcase the different qualities of each eye, including shape and distance from lid to eyebrow. I then created a mix of gazes, eye directions, and ethnicities in my final photographs, using two eyes in each picture. In the end, one of the most interesting parts of these photographs is that I’m usually visible in the reflection of each eye, uniting the pictures despite their differences.

Kurtis Gibbs and Tyler Cassell

For these five images we decided to play on facial expression.  By distorting Kurtis’ face we were able to create five different expressions. Also we wanted to show how backgrounds could add expression to a scenario.  In image 1 we tried to create a somewhat scary scenario by blacking out the eyes and making the face almost look like a mask. Also the background helps add to the spooky expression on the face. Image 2 is the only image that the face was not distorted in any way. We were looking to create an expression that made the scene appear real, to make it look as if Kurtis was really at the Great Wall. Image 3 is supposed to create a serious situation with the mug shot, although it is somewhat humorous. Images 4 and 5 are a combination of us both. In 4, it is Kurtis on the left and Tyler on the right and in image 5, it is Kurtis on the top and Tyler from the eyes down. These images were created to appear like the same person despite the fact it is two different people. We took two similar expressions and blended them into one person. We were trying to achieve the goal that someone who did not know us would assume that it was a real person.

My series of portraits depicts 5 different people coming through the landscape emerging into space. The idea I was trying to portray was the belief that people become part of their environment. All of these different individuals’ personalities are reflected through the landscape or scene they are pictured in. They interact so much with their environment that they eventually become a part of it.  For example, the individual pictured with water has a relaxed easy going personality where as the person whose face is coming through the brick wall portrays more rigid personality traits. Can you try and figure out everyone else’s personalities through the scene in which they are pictured? In today’s society, people get so wrapped up with the life they live that it almost becomes impossible to see them in a different scenario. This series is almost a portrait representation of the saying “you can take the girl out of the city but you can’t take the city of the girl”. Nature is one of the main focuses in my series because I feel that today in the busy world we live in, many people strive live a life that they aren’t meant to be living because they are still connected with the simplicity of nature and cannot relate to the life of hustle and bustle that is created through technology.

Evan Kirk

In class when we are doing lectures, we always get asked the question: What do see in this picture? Every time someone looks at a picture I feel that we all have different views or thoughts on what it could be or what it represents. In these pictures the subject’s eyes are in constant change. The first one is where both of her eyes are open, makes her able to see everything that is possible in sight. The second and third are opposite with only one eye open. The one eye open gives her only half of what she is capable of seeing. The most common aspect in photography is to try and show what is going on in the picture, but I want the viewer to look past that and see what she is seeing. I feel how much or how little she can see is the representation of people that are confused, misunderstood or just unaware. The fourth photo represents lack of understanding and relaxation. She can’t see anything so therefore there is less worry about what is going on.  There is only 4 ways to see things differently with vision and on the last one I choose her to be smiling as if she has reached a full understanding or almost an enlightenment about what she can see, or what she is trying to understand. I wanted these to almost represent our class and in how it relates to how we have developed as photographers. The first one shows how we are willing, and having the capability to learn and understand. The second and third represent the way of photography of how you have to look at things differently and create ideas that are unique. The third is to slow things down, think about what it is that you want to show and the last one shows our graduation into something we have been trying to learn since school has started.

Duy Nguyen

Human is a complex create. The ability to be aware of the Self, the desire to understand the Self distinguishes us from all other creatures on Earth. It is human nature to constantly question the Self, trying to understand it.

Just how much can you tell about one person by looking at his picture? What characteristics, what personalities are shown and what are hidden? Is there more to it than just an expression, a mean to convey his feelings when the picture was taken? I feel like a normal portrait could not possibly express all the levels of complexities of the inner Self hidden beneath one’s face.

In my pictures, I basically divided the subject’s face into two parts. The upper part I invert vertically. The lower part I create an underwater effect. The idea is that these pictures don’t only show a face, they show the complexity of the Self. Maybe there are parts of us that we are not aware of, maybe there are parts that we have yet to understand, maybe there are parts that turn out complete opposite from what we thought. This is an attempt to express the different layers of the inner Self on pictures.

Alex Pugliese

For my portrait photos I decided to do a bit of series. I have a series of six photos that you can only see my eyes and the top half of my nose in, but I am wearing a different hat in each one. This is a smaller version of a series that I was thinking of doing but could not get the resources until I went home. These hats display the hats that I have worn over a very long period of time. It represents the constant, me, and the ever changing world around me, my hats. That hat that is the drugs no problem hat I acquired when I was about 12 years old at a drive in movie theater in New Hampshire. The next hat is a hat I received as a gift when I went to the opening of the vineyard vines store in Greenwich my freshman year in high school. The next hat, the Georgetown crew hat was given to my as a birthday present from my sister because that year she went off to college and I became an only child. The next picture is of the winter season of my senior year where I was captain of the ski team at my high school. The next hat is one I got on a mission trip in February of last year, one of the kids in Honduras gave it to me as a present. And the last hat is the most recent, I got in Newport where my dad was racing for Newport race week. So each of these pictures represents a different point in my life had I had all of my hats this would have made for a much more extensive timeline of my life.

Jennie Seidewand

Portraiture has traditionally focused on the human figure, supposedly using their expressions and body to give a glimpse of the human personality. But our society doesn’t just believe that we’re made up of our bodies, but rather that the things we own and the objects we surround ourselves with become indicators of our personality.
For my project, I wanted to think about the way our society uses objects to define personality—our clothes, our posters, our love of animals are all a big part of defining who we are. Despite being a human portraiture, all of the faces here are blurred out (a combination of depth of field and a little bit of photoshop for a couple images). The objects these individuals find important to them are, instead, in focus. This is meant to make the viewer consider the ways in which these objects create, represent, and embody the person, instead of using the face to give us that glimpse portraiture usually provides.

Xiao Lin

The attempt in these portraits is to portray some of the different identities that I carry by applying technical ideologies of photography. This project allows me to explore who I am and what it means to be that person. It also allows me to question what ideas and daily objects are associated with each of these identities that I take on.
The first identity that struck me was the child within me. I believe that people always carry some innocence and naivety no matter how old they are. For me, growing up I yearned to understand what it means to be an adult; as a child, I always wanted to be more mature than other children around me. However, as I grow older I yearn instead to feel what it means to be an innocent and naïve child again. I try to portray maturity’s hypocrisy with the first portrait and second portrait. In the first portrait, I am kissing a stuff animal which is an innocent gesture of a little kid because of their belief of the livelihood of a stuff animal. The second portrait of me standing in front of my dresser is one that defines my maturity. Here, I am a young woman who surrounds herself with mature objects such as perfume, deodorant, roses (as a sign of romance), and makeup. The motion in this picture is to portray a sort of transparency of my maturity because a part of me remains a child.
 The third portrait shows me combing my hair as I stand in front of a mirror. This portrait is to show one of my daily routines that is common and familiar to many people so my identity here is really ambiguous. Whereas in the last two portraits it is not hard to tell that I am a student with the book I’m reading, the desk I’m sitting at, the way I’m dressed, and my age. Besides possessing the identity of a student, I am also a consumer of the internet because I am using Google and chatting on line.