Category Archives: portraiture

Jun 3

The point of these photographs? Real interaction…

JR-03

Recently, French artist JR (whom Raffi Khatchadourian wrote about here) took over The New Yorker’s Instagram feed to document his new large-scale participatory art project, ‘Inside Out‘.

JR and his team opened a specially designed photo booth in New York’s Times Square, a location which attracts some 400,000 daily visitors. He invited passersby to take self-portraits and then he printed three-by-four-foot black-and-white versions of the resulting photo booth images and pasted them to the ground in various locations.

The goal of the project was to allow each portrait-taker to express through his or her face a message to the world.
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May 18

Brad Pitt’s black and white portraits of Angelina Jolie

What do you make of these monochrome photographs by Brad Pitt?

W’s creative director Dennis Freedman wanted a different perspective for the magazine’s feature of Angelina Jolie, one of the most photographed women in the world. The answer couldn’t have been more obvious and ambitious…

“I was surprised that Brad accepted the challenge,” said Freedman as Brad Pitt showed interest and enthusiasm in shooting the portraits himself.

Captured on rare tech pan film, Brad’s portfolio ‘One Week’ showcases private moments in the Jolie-Pitt household in Provence, France.


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May 13

Kirsty Mitchell’s extraordinary Wonderland series – three years in the making

Danaus: A close-up of a model before a sunlit backdrop, peering through a veil of paper butterflies

Danaus: A close-up of a model before a sunlit backdrop, peering through a veil of paper butterflies

Kirsty Mitchell’s late mother Maureen was an English teacher who spent her life inspiring generations of children with imaginative stories and plays. Following Maureen’s death from a brain tumour in 2008, Kirsty channelled her grief into her passion for photography.

She retreated behind the lens of her camera and created Wonderland, an ethereal fantasy world. The photographic series began as a small summer project but grew into an inspirational creative journey.

Kirsty explains:

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May 13

Amazing flash street photography

Chicago Lights: Flash Street Photography by Satoki Nagata snow multiple exposures light Chicago black and white

Chicago-based photographer Satoki Nagata has produced a series of abstract, black and white street portraits of people caught in the winter elements.

Nagata says that he lights his subjects from behind with a flash using a slow shutter speed and doesn’t rely on double exposures or glass reflections as it may appear.

The results are some pretty striking photographs of people who look nearly transparent yet appear to be almost perfectly surrounded by a crisp halo of light.

Here are more examples of Satoki’s amazing flash street photography:

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May 3

Created equal: Mark Laita’s insightful photography series

These images are from ‘Created Equal’, the amazing photography project of photographer Mark Laita which focuses on contrasts between people, their lives and their cultures through a series of engaging black and white portraits.

Here are some more photographs from this remarkable series…

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Apr 20

Brandon Stanton’s compelling photoblog: Humans of New York

Photographer Brandon Stanton is the brainchild behind the wildly popular blog Humans of New York, otherwise known as HONY.

Stanton spends his days photographing on the streets of New York City, and what truly sets his images apart from those found on other photography blogs is his personal interaction with his subjects.

Now more then a year into his blogging project, Stanton has collected compelling quotes and stories from an estimated 10,000 New Yorkers who he has stopped to photograph along the way. In the meantime, HONY’s follower base has grown to about one million fans.

Be sure to visit Stanton’s Humans of New York blog and, if you haven’t already done so, check out the video clip above for an insightful commentary into his creative inspiration!

Related post: Finding comfort in portraits of Bostonians