Portrait Assignment

Part 1
Annie Leibovitz
leibovitz_gallery_kidman.jpgleibovitz_gallery_baryshnikov.jpg
Annie Leibovitz is a portrait photographer for Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone magazine. When she worked for Rolling Stone magazine she developed her trademark technique, which involved the use of bold primary colours and surprising poses. The use of the dramatic poses, from her view is a method of showing the truth about her subject. Annie Leibovitz learned to take picture in black and white, so she had to learn and master the use of lighting and colour on her own. She is known for her wildly lit, staged, and provocative portraits of celebrities. Annie Leibovitz is most successful shot is of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, hours after photographing them John Lennon was shot dead in front of his apartment. When shooting her subject she asks them to pose doing a crazy or silly things that show their personality more than a "straight" portrait could. Elements that Annie Leibovitz uses are natural lighting through windows and non distracting backgrounds.


Steve McCurry
AFGRL-10002.jpgINDIA-10296.jpg

Steve McCurry is one of today's best imagers. McCurry is best known for his evocative colour. He documents tradition, he capture joy and struggle. McCurry is the opposite of Annie Leibovitz, she sets up her subjects and photographs them. For Steve McCurry he travels to a country and waits for the subject to be in an unguarded moment and then he takes the photo. Steve does film and digital, but he prefers to use transparency film, he was given the honor to shoot the very last Kodachrome transparency film made. Each portrait Steve McCurry takes is able to stand on its own and each tells a different story. His goal for each portrait is to convey what it is like to be that person. Every portrait he focuses on the face or faces of the people, this is done extremely well throughout his use of depth of field. Steve McCurry never takes a portrait in the broad daylight fearing that his subject will squint. The eyes of the person in the portrait are the most important part of the photo, he creates the emotion by having himself and the subject at the same height. Steve McCurry uses different lighting, always natural lighting but at different times of the day.