Portrait Photography
Assignment #4 – The Documentary Portrait
Please hand in this sheet in a protective plastic sleeve together with your proof sheet(s), your prints, and acid-free conservation board.
Assignment Description:
Take pictures of people that function as evidence and examine a social group. Possibilities include, but are not limited to, honorific humanism, candid camera, and typologies. Hand in a minimum of three images.
Related Reading Assignment:
Through Eastern Eyes: Richard Avedon's In the American West by Max Kozloff
extra credit:
Forward to Walker Evans' Many Are Called by Luc Sante
Migrant Mother: 1936 by Paul Taylor
Rogovin's Working People Series by Fred Licht
Assignment Objective:
A documentary approach to portraiture often places an individual within the context of a greater social environment with the intention of making a statement. The danger of this approach is that a person might be easily exploited. This assignment is intended to address ethical and aesthetic issues, while at the same time explore different strategies for accomplishing documentary pictures of people.
Suggestions:
Put yourself in the other person's shoes. In other words, ask yourself if you would feel OK about being pictured in a certain way. Consider whether or not the message you are trying to get across is more important than an individual's privacy and lifestyle. Endeavor to make a clear statement that tells the truth as you see it, yet with the understanding that you are also constructing a record heavily influenced by your own personal point of view.
Evaluation Criteria:
Craftsmanship - Sharpness
Exposure (full shadow and highlight detail)
Contrast (a solid black, a bright white, and a full range of gray values)
Value (appropriate lightness / darkness)
Needs dodging and/or burning
Cleanness (no dust, water spots, scratches)
Print damage
Aesthetic / Conceptual refinement (accomplishes assignment description and meets objective)
Grade ___________
Student Name_______________________________
Teacher Comments: