Portrait Photographers - who is your favourite?

Vicki Knights
George Fairbairn
Tiffany Bender
Emily Burke
 
andyturner said:
... I thought it might be useful to do the same with portrait photographers ...
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Interesting seeing Helen Bartlett's work again for the first time in maybe 5 years, and how relatively little her style has changed since she first started. Helen deserves whatever success she now enjoys, because if ever anybody had to work at mastering the technicalities of doing what they wanted to do photo-wise, it was she. She just kept at it, constantly striving to get better. In fact the last time I saw her, she was snapping away in a body-piercing salon in Brighton, on assignment at a workshop held there. Her assignment was chosen to take her well out of her comfort zone, which it did, but being Helen she just got stuck in, worked her socks off, and came back with an excellent set of pictures.

Anyhow, I'm not well enough up to speed with portrait photographers nowadays to have any particular favourites apart from Anna Kuperberg, whose pictures under the loose heading of "kids" still take a lot of beating IMO. And that's not just because I have a very high regard for her as a person as well as a photographer.
 
Now retired I believe, but I have never seen another photographer who brought out the innate character of her subjects as well as Jane Bown. I would recommend her book 'Faces' to any aspiring portrait photographer.
 
August Sander; with a nod to Jane Bown. Photographers not usually associated with portraiture produced some portraits that I admire (e.g. Edward Weston and Ansel Adams).
 
theurbanclown said:
Thanks. Glad you understand :)
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Can you help me with diner today. I thought I liked steak pie but then I remembered I need your approval for my opinion.

Is steak pie ok or should I choose something else for dinner?

The shop shuts at 4pm so I still have time to go change it.
 
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Great thread.

I'll add Yousuf Karsh
 
andyturner said:
Really? I don't see any similarities in their work...
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Really? Black and white images of young children smoking.... and you see no resemblance?
 
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No.. just the children smoking.... not her style in general, which I agree... is nothing like Mann's. Those two images are a bit iffy though.
 
Subject matter doesn't bother me.... the derivative nature of them does though.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I'm not convinced photography is a medium as suited to 'formal' portraiture in the way painting is
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What do you mean by that Ed ?
Ed Sutton said:
so I'll throw Keith Arnatt's Walking the Dog series and Tom Wood into the mix - with Niall McDiarmid for a more contemporary touch.
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Tom Woods two girls on the X19 is a fantastic picture...lol
A portrait is a portrait isn't it, street, formal, candid, staged, are you saying you.........actually I dunno what you are saying :)
 
Annie Leibovitzwww.leibovitzstudio.com
Arnold Newmanwww.arnoldnewmanarchive.com
Dan Winterswww.danwintersphoto.com
David Tejadawww.davidtejada.com
David Ziserwww.ziser.com
Dean Collinswww.deancollins.com
Denis Rouvrewww.rouvre.com
Dom Romneywww.domromney.com
Douglas Sonderswww.sondersphotography.com
Ellen Von Unwerth tbc
Gregoire Alexandrewww.gregoirealexandre.com
Gregory Heislerwww.gregoryheisler.com
Joe McNallyhttp://portfolio.joemcnally.com
Joel Grimeshttp://joelgrimes.com
Joey Lwww.joeyl.com
John Rankinwww.rankin.co.uk
Ken Brownwww.kenbrownart.com
Mario Testinowww.mariotestino.com
Mark Seligerwww.instagram.com/philipe_photographer
Michael Furmanwww.michaelfurman.com
Patrick Demarchelierwww.demarchelier.com
Peggy Sirotawww.peggysirota.com
Pepper Yandellwww.pepperyandell.com
Pepper Yandellwww.pepperyandell.com
Philipewww.philippephoto.ca
Richard Avedonwww.avedonfoundation.org
Terry Richardsonwww.terryrichardson.com
Tim Flachwww.timflach.com
Yousuf Karshwww.karsh.org
Zack Ariaswww.zackarias.com
 
Pookeyhead said:
Subject matter doesn't bother me.... the derivative nature of them does though.
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If you're bored, just Google, "Rosie Hardy plagiarism", and fill your boots. Seems there was quite the scandal in Flickrland.

As for the smokers, I don't think they were actually smoking. Set up and/or post production, to make a point about "growing up too quickly" apparently. Or, given that Google search result, maybe your observation is more accurate. ;)

Back on topic, I don't spend much time looking at other people's work anymore. Maybe I should. I just get bored of trawling through so much of the same boring stuff online though.

Portrait photography these days seems to mean, hipsters with Photoshop.
 
I don't do Flickrland. I use it's storage space, and have a few images hosted on there.... that's the extent of it. Everyone just plagiarises everyone else on there. All the images look the same.
 
joxby said:
What do you mean by that Ed ?

Tom Woods two girls on the X19 is a fantastic picture...lol
A portrait is a portrait isn't it, street, formal, candid, staged, are you saying you.........actually I dunno what you are saying :)
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I deliberately said 'formal' portraiture, as I think photography can do 'informal' portraiture well. This is merely an ill-formed opinion which I can't easily express, but what I think photography does is capture fleeting fractions of personality, because of the speed with which the image is produced. You get the superficial appearance of a person. A painted portrait might take minutes, hours, days, weeks to make. The painter isn't in one fixed position like a camera's lens is. What is painted might not be strictly accurate in visual terms (features may be exaggerated or reduced) but can still be accurate in terms of revealing the person. There's more goes into making a painted portrait and so more comes out.

Photography is very good at showing factual information, less so at getting under the surface of things.

For candid/informal portraiture photography is superb, but I'm not sure it gets deep into a personality in the way that painting can. Then again, what is a portrait?
 
Ed Sutton said:
I deliberately said 'formal' portraiture, as I think photography can do 'informal' portraiture well. This is merely an ill-formed opinion which I can't easily express, but what I think photography does is capture fleeting fractions of personality, because of the speed with which the image is produced. You get the superficial appearance of a person. A painted portrait might take minutes, hours, days, weeks to make. The painter isn't in one fixed position like a camera's lens is. What is painted might not be strictly accurate in visual terms (features may be exaggerated or reduced) but can still be accurate in terms of revealing the person. There's more goes into making a painted portrait and so more comes out.

Photography is very good at showing factual information, less so at getting under the surface of things.

For candid/informal portraiture photography is superb, but I'm not sure it gets deep into a personality in the way that painting can. Then again, what is a portrait?
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I thought that was it and wrote so, but I decided I might be making too many assumptions and deleted it in favour of "I dunno what you mean"
I wrote that candid wasn't really paintable since its a fleeting moment, a fraction of a second and its gone.
I dunno about formal and photography, I think its true to say that for your average joe a camera is not the most suitable tool to capture a portrait portraying more than the sum of its parts, but I think its been done, maybe that's the difference between average joe and the true gods of photographic portraiture.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I deliberately said 'formal' portraiture, as I think photography can do 'informal' portraiture well. This is merely an ill-formed opinion which I can't easily express, but what I think photography does is capture fleeting fractions of personality, because of the speed with which the image is produced. You get the superficial appearance of a person. A painted portrait might take minutes, hours, days, weeks to make. The painter isn't in one fixed position like a camera's lens is. What is painted might not be strictly accurate in visual terms (features may be exaggerated or reduced) but can still be accurate in terms of revealing the person. There's more goes into making a painted portrait and so more comes out.

Photography is very good at showing factual information, less so at getting under the surface of things.

For candid/informal portraiture photography is superb, but I'm not sure it gets deep into a personality in the way that painting can. Then again, what is a portrait?
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An interesting point of view, and one worth considering.

If I believed it, I would immediately stop trying to learn photography portraiture before I really get going.

I instinctively don't believe it.
 
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