Commercial vs Fine Portraits

Contrasting commercial and fine portraits:

The larger picture is much more relaxed and less exaggerated. It is much more focused on the face and features of MC Ride, and isn't being used to draw in or entice consumers in any way. The picture is only of his face and doesn't focus on anything else.

The smaller picture, (from slate magazine) is much more wild and exciting, including his whole body, the stage and microphone, and the crowd in the background. This commercial portrait is used more heavily to get readers to find out more about MC ride and his band, while the fine art portrait does not.  

Commercial portraits

What are Commercial Portraits????

Commercial portraits are to make the subject look good and fashionable, or to advertise a product. You find these all over billboards, magazines, and commercials online. 

Examples:

From Fantastic Man magazine

For Brick Magazine

Why do I like these portraits??

Well, I believe that both of them are highly interesting and enticing, and make people want to open the magazine to read the article. They both highlight the best things about the subjects and make them "look good". 

Fine art portraits

What is a fine Portrait????

In my opinion, a Fine Portrait is a photograph that accurately represents the subject, while simultaneously showing off the photographer's prowess and skill. The picture needs to capture as much essence as it can over the subject, be aesthetically pleasing, and not be "overdoing" it. 

Christopher Walken by Richard Avedon

Frank Ocean by Fader

I like both these portraits because they very skillfully demonstrate exactly what both men look like. The Christopher Walken photograph shows a more stoic expression, but with much more deeper and meaningful connotation. The Frank Ocean portrait gives a tiny hit towards his cool t shirt, which I like a lot about that picture. 

Project #9 - Surrealism

First Surrealism Image:

This is a photo of the short sands beach on the Oregon Coast Line. Included is a cutout picture of Quinn, a photo of a building I took in London, a cutout from one of my favorite video games, and a few clones of people in the original picture (if you can spot them). 

Second Surrealism Image: 

This image shows surrealism, because buildings are not meant to look like this! I also changed the saturation and tint to show very vibrant colors which you usually don't see on large buildings. The original picture was a photograph of the design museum in London a year ago. I edited all four pictures in photoshop. All four pictures are exactly the same with a different colored tint.

Third Surrealism Image:

In my second image, I again copy and pasted the same image into a 2x2 grid, changing the tint each time. The original picture is a photograph of my friend, Quinn Johnson, on the Lincoln Patio. I cut out and pasted his body multiple times, rotating and transforming it each time. I also used the fill tool to create the paint-spill looking designs in the corner of each photo. 

Daguerrotype and cyanotype

Cyanotype Picture:

What is a cyanotype?

A cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. The process uses two chemicals; ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide.

Daguerrotype Picture:

Other daguerrotype picture:

                                    

What is a daguerrotype?

A daguerrotype is a photograph taken by an early photographic process employing an iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor.