Portraiture Photographer Research

Alec Soth

"I fell in love with the process of taking pictures, with wandering around finding things. To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance."

Alec Soth’s work is rooted in the distinctly American tradition of ‘on-the-road photography’ developed by Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Stephen Shore. From Huckleberry Finn to Easy Rider there seems to be a uniquely American desire to travel and chronicle the adventures that consequently ensue. He has received fellowships from the McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations and was the recipient of the 2003 Santa Fe Prize for Photography. His photographs are represented in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Walker Art Center. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 2004 Whitney Biennial and a career survey at the Jeu de Paume in 2008.

Here are some examples of his work:

I really like how in all of the above pictures, the background and 'props' in the picture is of a lot of relevance. This is because of the way his pictures seem to capture the personalities and life stories of the person he is photographing. It's like we are seeing them in their natural setting where they seem to fit in, depending on what kind of person it is. I have found that the majority of his pictures are outdoor settings but different landscapes outdoors. He also captures people of all sorts of races, gender and age.

His pictures are mainly taken in areas in mid-western  America.

Comparison to Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer who is now considered one of America's best portrait photographers. Her two main works have been with the Rolling stone and the Vanity Fair Magazine. She photographs many celebrities for various sorts of shoots.

Here are some examples of her work:

As you can see  by the pictures above, she does many pictures in black and white these pictures show a high contrast between the dark tones and the light tones. The way she edits her pictures, along side with this contrast in tones but a lot of emphasis on their faces which draws our eyes towards them. Some of her photos are shot in dead pan like the bottom one and top one however the middle shows more expression and maybe more inspiration.

The connotations of the three pictures above (and a lot of her other pictures) share a common thread of showing power and strength. I think this is because of the contrasting tones but also the face that the celebrities are showing and what expression that gives off. The three above are in dead pan and they are all staring right at the camera which makes them seem more powerful and this helps capture our attention more.

Comparison:

The two photographers I have researched have clearly very different approaches when it comes to portraiture photography. Alec Soth's portraits consider the background, setting and context of the person he is shooting, this makes the whole image important as the background and the style of the person says a lot about the picture and person. Each one of his pictures has a different story and context to it. That's because of the way he shoots them. On the other hand, Annie Leibovitz seems to consider the facial expressions of the people she is shooting a lot more. This seems to be the most important aspect of her portraits; the focus and definition of the face and the facial expression. So whilst her pictures don' t show much context and other factors that help support the portrait, the way she edits the tones and contrasts in her photos defines the face which adds a lot of emotion. This leads on to the other clear difference between the two as Alec Soth's pictures don't seem to be as obviously edited and they seem to be taken from very natural and real life scenarios whereas Annie Leibovitz's portraits are highly edited and  a lot of them look like they've been taken in studios.