A portrait photograph may be important for historic preservation, personal branding or for personal pleasure, it is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait photograph may be artistic or clinical. Portrait photographers are able to capture the personality and emotion of people around them.
Portrait photos look best if the eyes are in sharp focus, this improves the sense of eye contact between the subject and viewer, creating a powerful and engaging photo. When shooting portraits with a shallow depth of field, it is important to set your focus point carefully.
Examples of Portrait Photography
Contemporary Portrait Photography
Contemporary portrait photography could be described as a photograph from our own time, compared to an image from a much earlier period. Instead, it is a reference to an image created that reflects our values, challenges and perceptions today or, in reference to a contemporaneous period for that image.
Examining photographic portraits has been a way we practice critical thinking about identities, how images relate to social, historical and cultural contexts and how ideas, feelings and meanings are portrayed through portrait photography and ultimately how they shape our history.
Contemporary photography encapsulates or reflects back to us an opinion about our world today. Values, societies, philosophy, standards for living, technology, politics and geopolitical realities constantly change.
For the photograph to be “contemporary” it does not have to ignore a prior historical context, or that it is influenced by the work of others in the past, or by other current artists. The photographer may have combined previously taken images from any prior point in time giving that image a contemporary re-birth.
Lee Jeffries
Lee Jeffries is a British street photographer, who resides near Manchester, England. He focuses on homeless people in England and all around the world. Lee‘s images were published in many prestigious magazines and newspapers, photography came into his life by accident when he was 35 years old.
Jeffries’ relationship with street portraits began in 2008 when he took his camera and went out. The main reason he went to shoot people out, was that he felt lonely inside and being surrounded by people helped to change that feeling. According to him, the more relationships he created with homeless people, the less lonely he felt, so his photographing activity at some point was not giving something away, but take something back too.
By making portraits of homeless persons, Lee wanted to dig a little bit deeper and get to know them at first, create a connection with them and maybe even help them to change their complicated situation. According to him, if you respect a person no matter what is his social status, he will respect you back and that is a key of trust with which you can create a certain atmosphere for making a good portrait.
What i like about Jeffries’ photographs is the deep emotion each picture presents. This photograph is filled with distress, trouble, sorrow and sadness, his images are very powerful and make the viewer feel sympathy towards the person in the photograph as the people in Jeffries’ images are homeless and express negative emotions, showing they aren’t happy with their lives.
What catches my eye the most about this photo is the deep contrast between the black and white tones and the detail in her skin, i like how the highlights bounce off of her skin from the natural light and instead of trying to hide her age, Jeffries expresses their age by capturing each small detail in her skin.
The surroundings of her face are dark and plain and all your focus gets taken to her detailed face and towards the emotions shes feeling.