Friday 10 September 2010

Contemporary Portraiture

In my further thinking about project two over the summer I kept trying to return to basic principles. What is it that I love in photography, what gets me most excited, what do I find most inspiring and moving. The answer always includes an element of portraiture, I love people, their stories, their faces, their uniqueness. When I think of the photographers I admire the most they are usually invariably the stand out portrait photographers.

I recently returned to the work of Hendrik Kerstens who won one of the taylor Wessing photographic prozes in 2007 for his piece entitled 'bag' and I remember the impact when I saw that incredible photograph in the flesh 'literally' at the final exhibition for the prize, which was frozen dumbstruck awe at what he had managed to create, an almost hyperreal portrait which captured the light and style of Dutch painters such as Vermeer.

Before the summer I also acquired a book of Avedon images.......seriously....how the hell does he do that? And I think that is my motivating question in all this.....

I am pretty sure then that portraiture is going to be the basic idea, the concept has yet to be refined, I have a few ideas and will try to get a tutorial and some advice on these before I make any final decisions.

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