Portraiture

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Portraiture was originally where rich and powerful people had their portraits painted by an artist, where they controlled how they appear in the painting. However with the invention of the camera it has developed to be more open and cheaper, so poorer people could also afford to have their portraits taken as a photograph. The camera has allowed the artist to be more in control of how the person appears in the portrait, as opposed to the person being portrayed being in control, as it used to be. Diane Arbus was a photographer who took portrait photos that were different and captured angst in people and emotions they did not wish others to see, showing the person inside, such as the photo she took in 1969 of Marcella Matthaei, where she was commissioned to take family portraits of them one christmas (photo above). This photo captures the teenage angst and frustration in the eyes of Marcella, which shows how her work could capture the spirit and inner emotions of people, despite their attempts to hide it, as Marcella is doing in her posture.
Tony Vaccaro took celebrity portraits, and he liked his portraits of people to reflect his opinion of them; for him to think of a word that most suits their personality and to then capture that word in an image of the person, showing their personality as he sees it; as opposed to the typical photo poses people use when their photograph is being taken. Portraits have developed from paintings, with photographs they can now be used to capture the true essence of a person as opposed to what they would like you to see. An image that Tony Vaccora took that shows how he captures a person's personality is one of Jackson Pollock, an American artist, taken in 1953 (photo below).

Another photographer that challenged the boundaries of acceptable photography was Larry Clark, who took portrait photos through his life, of how he lived, documenting life with photos as he went along, which he later published in a book called Tulsa. Larry Clark's photography contained images of drugs, sec and guns. Graphic images are shown of people shooting heroin and of people holding guns and of pain and nudity; (as shown above, below the Jackson Pollock photo). The first Larry Clark photo shows a man and a woman, laying naked together shooting heroin, capturing the integrity and lifestyle of Larry Clark and the people in his life. the second shows the effects and trouble of the guns they played around with (which is shown in other photos); the image is evidently of a man who has been shot in the leg. The photo captures his pain and the woman next to hims fear and distress and the event; which is exactly what fascinates me about Larry Clark's photography; that he captures something real that he knows about that a lot of photographers wouldn't dare show.