MetaFilter posts tagged with portrait

Four Sisters...36 years

Omnomnom — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:11:00 -0800

In 1975, American photographer Nicholas Nixon took a photo of his wife Bebe and her three sisters. Since then, the Brown sisters took a photo every year till 2010. Bonus: Five Friends, 30 years.

Our Fair City

backseatpilot — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:41:50 -0800

Portraits of Boston

Origin of the Beginning

carsonb — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:08:26 -0800

Levi van Veluw * has taken his self-portraiture to the next level by bringing his family into the picture. "Portrayed in this piece is a room with 5 persons sitting at a table.... The endless repetition of wooden blocks stands for van Veluw’s attempts to gain control of his own position within the familial structure."

Exposing Nature Within Humanity

hippybear — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:45:58 -0800

Christoffer Relander creates multiple-exposure portrait photographs, crossing humans and nature to haunting effect.

Smile for the camera!

flyingsquirrel — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:54:09 -0800

"Blow Job" is a series of portraits of people with gale-force winds blown directly into their faces. (SFW) The artist is Lithuanian photographer Tadao Cern. More images can be found on his Facebook page.

An Artist Goes Undercover at a JC Penney Portrait Studio

chunking express — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:34:40 -0800

An Artist Goes Undercover at a JC Penney Portrait Studio.

Modern portraits, old techniques

cjelli — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:56:29 -0800

"The Soldier Portraits Project...consists of portrait photographs of soldiers of the United States Army, primarily of the 3rd Infantry Division...[t]he photographs are made using the 150 year old collodion wet plate process - the same process that was used to document much of the period (and many of the soldiers) of the Civil War." "The wet plate process...is a very slow process, requiring each sitter to remain still and concentrate on the picture-making procedure for up to 60 seconds." These are some of the photographs, taken from 2007 through 2010. [Not exactly previously, but certainly related]

El Pintor Con Las Letras

klangklangston — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:43:41 -0800

Throughout the world, El Mac's grand spraypaint portraits combine with RETNA's cryptic, hieroglyphic language to create stunning murals.

Hollywood glamour photography

Trurl — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:48:01 -0800

Glamour photography of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, etc. [NSFdialup]

Barbet Schroeder's "General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait"

Trurl — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:06:35 -0800

Amin's hunger for publicity was so great, in fact, that in 1974 he became the first dictator in history to agree to be the subject of an independent documentary film. The resulting movie, Barbet Schroeder's General Idi Amin Dada... is a devastating look at despotism in action and a riveting, and strangely entertaining, portrait of Amin. After hearing that Parisian audiences were laughing at the documentary, Amin examined the film closer and found 2 minutes that he wanted cut. When Schroeder refused to cut it initially, Amin made an offer he couldn't refuse. The malevolent dictator rounded up all French citizens in Kampala into a hotel and called the film director to force the issue. Knowing the fate of others in disfavor, Schroeder bowed to the hostage situation and cut the offending footage, which has been restored in the Criterion DVD release. Still missing is the final voiceover that expresses the theme of the intriguing film, that originally played during the haunting final close-up of the shifty eyed dictator:
After a century of colonization, let us not forget that it is partially a deformed image of ourselves Idi Amin Dada reflects back at us.

women portrait themselves

SylviaAspevig — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:53:23 -0800

The original time-lapse self portrait? And some modern artists: Enchanting self portraits from Iceland's Rebekka Gaudleifs. Nude self portrait (NSFW) from Israeli artist Roni River. Disturbing stories from Canada's projecteye (NSFW) and magical self-portrait from New Hampshire-based Sarah Ann Loreth.

poignant portraits of youth at war

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 16:47:24 -0800

In remembrance of the Confederate and Union soldiers who served in the American Civil War, the Liljenquist Family recently donated their rare collection of almost 700 ambrotype and tintype photographs to the Library of Congress. These achingly poignant portraits speak volumes. Related essay by the young Mr. Brandon Liljenquist.

woa

iamck — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 08:28:12 -0800

Seydou Keïta, self taught Malian portrait photographer, shot some of the most renowned portraiture of 1940 - 1960's Bamakan society. Seydou's portraits were produced as small photos that could be easily mailed back often to their families in rural Mali. After being noticed by a French photographer, he eventually became known internationally for his portraits with expositions at Centre Pompidou and the Gagosian Gallery. NY Times on Keïta Interview with Keïta Many of the photos played on the contrast in patterns of African clothing and backdrops of similar fabrics. This type of clothing is known as batik. It is the common style of clothing in West Africa, from Ghana to Senegal. But it actually came from Java, brought back to Africa by, amongst other things, by W. African soldiers who served in Indonesia between 1810 and 1862. The “African Print” Hoax: Machine Produced Textiles Jeopardize African Print Authenticity Veritable Wax Hollandais Batik kimonos (previously) Another Bamako photographer of note, shooting a bit later into the 60/70s Bamako is Malick Sidibé. Interview with Sidibé Short documentary Lastly, Manu Dibango plays tribute to the West African photo studio and the pioneering work of artists like Keïta and Sidibé in his music video "Woa."

Barry Goldwater's photographs of the West

Nelson — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:34:30 -0800

In addition to being a five term US senator, Barry Goldwater was an accomplished photographer, particularly of people and landscapes of the American West. via @TelstarLogistic.

A modern self-portrait

dabitch — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:18:13 -0800

Face your pockets. I have no idea how these people got their heads wedged into their scanners, or why.

Fayum mummy portraits

russilwvong — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:58:32 -0800

"They are the earliest painted portraits that have survived; they were painted whilst the Gospels of the New Testament were being written. Why then do they strike us today as being so immediate? Why does their individuality feel like our own? Why is their look more contemporary than any look to be found in the rest of the two millennia of traditional European art which followed them? The Fayum portraits touch us as if they had been painted last month." The Fayum mummy portraits were painted between the first and third centuries AD, in Roman Egypt, and preserved by the dry Egyptian climate. Wikimedia Commons. According to Wikipedia, 900 portraits are known to have survived. John Bavaro has been creating modern versions using the Brushes app on the iPhone. Via the Brushes Gallery on Flickr.

Inventor Portrait

rageagainsttherobots — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:50:35 -0800

David Friedman, the guy behind sundaymagazing.org, has created a fascinating series of short docs and photos he calls Inventor Portraits. I particularly like the installment on life long inventor Brent Farley, and the man behind the Wilcraft.

The Face of a Joke on the Body of a Truth

bwg — Sat, 15 May 2010 03:51:08 -0800

French artist Anthony Geoffrey makes fantastic celebrity caricatures. The site uses flash and is in French but it loads fast and the navigation is simple. The caricatures are in the Portfolio. I particularly enjoyed his Ash from Evil Dead and his House MD. These are not the same as the ones you find in the mall by some poor guy trying to scratch out a living. A caricature is defined as "a representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject's distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect." In researching, I learned there exists an International Society of Caricature Artists, as well as a social network for caricaturists. More on caricature history here. Previously on MeFi. Note: title is from a quote by Joseph Conrad

Your Aura is Showing

tuck_nroll — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:53:48 -0800

The Aura Camera was developed in the 1970s by Polaroid as a way to see auras around people as a psychic might. Though very rare, Carlo Van De Roer managed to get his hands on an AuraCam 6000 to capture a stunningly unique series of portraits [some mildly NSFW].

Meet the Chicago City Council

hydrophonic — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:00:19 -0800

50 Aldermen/50 Artists. Chicago gallery Johalla Projects enlisted local artists to meet with the members of the city council and create a portrait of the person they found. "The goal is just to get people involved," says co-curator Jeremy Scheuch. "I think a lot of aldermen were (initially) afraid of what this might be about." More photos here.

Paint comes alive

emilyd22222 — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:42:07 -0800

Many people who paint portraits try to make the painting look like a living person. Alexa Meade tries to make the person look like a painting. Related.

Scout, Mum, Dad, etc

tellurian — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:27:07 -0800

Portraits – Somewhat creepy but arresting, nevertheless.

What Do They Keep?

AzraelBrown — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:23:23 -0800

"I found him, this little dog in a dumpster down in the projects in the South Side while I was pickin’ up cans. The reason I picked it up is because whenever I see a little child I give it to him." After seeing the request for help in the bulletin one Sunday morning, Susan Mullally volunteered to take the photos for the church directory. The church is The Church Under The Bridge, and the congregation is primarily the homeless. Mullally's photos aren't of just the person, but also include something important to them - an object which, despite lacking a permanent place to put it, must be treasured.

The Human Survey

blaneyphoto — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:42:57 -0800

The Human Survey is a photo project by Nathan Jones. "We want to go from city to city and shoot thousands of portraits. We average a portrait every minute, and shoot just about every person that walks by us."

Let me tell you about my mother.

The Whelk — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:11:28 -0800

Clayton Cubitt is a video artist. He does video portraits. They are disturbing, warholian, and weird