"Outcasts are my kind, they try harder. From strip joints to Burlesque theaters, I went on a quest and met the 'Legends', these dominating characters of the quintessential American art of strip tease. Hours of confidence on tapes, intimate photo sessions, they peel off and reveal the hidden layers of their life with throaty emotion. Their memories reflecting the memories of the land. Vietnam vets and bikers are their loyal patrons..."
The Living Art Of Risqué, a photo essay from Marie Baronnet, features portraits of former strippers aged 60 to 95, accompanied by short bio-vignettes in their own words.
[NSFW; nudity] [more inside]
posted by taz
on Jan 10, 2013 -
4 comments
More often than not, some of the best observers of places are those not originally from there. Leon Borensztein was born in Poland, settled in Israel and emigrated only later in life to the U.S. in 1977. But unlike de Tocqueville and other aristocratic travelers of old, he had to make ends meet and stumbled into taking commercial pictures of average, normal Americans as a fly-by-night job to pay the bills. Borensztein’s portraits—comprised in his new book, American Portraits, 1979–1989, published this month by Nazraeli Press—took place on the sidelines of commercial gigs. His tools and techniques were dictated by his means: a generic backdrop, a camera, simple and spare. --
TIME Lightbox
posted by filthy light thief
on Dec 4, 2012 -
3 comments
In my unending search for just the right vintage images for our articles, I have looked through thousands of photographs of men from the last century or so. One of the things that I have found most fascinating about many of these images, is the ease, familiarity, and intimacy, which men used to exhibit in photographs with their friends and compadres. Male Affection: A Photographic History Tour
posted by byanyothername
on Aug 13, 2012 -
41 comments
Picture a tiny Italian woman gesturing continuously as she uncorks a full brain dump (from a very, very creative mind) on all of the little things that many people never think of when photographing others.
"... the first time I had to photograph someone that wasn’t myself, I spent the night before puking, and it was half a disaster. Ten years later, these are the things I wish someone had told me back then."
Sara Lando's On Photographing People:
Pt. 1, the first in her three-part series on photographing people on
Strobist.
[more inside]
posted by jillithd
on Aug 10, 2012 -
6 comments
Half-Drag is photographer Leland Bobbé's series capturing both the 'male and the alter-ego female side' of a person's face in a single image.
posted by gman
on Aug 5, 2012 -
25 comments
Iconic Portraits Formed by Clusters of Tiny People. Starting his creative career as a street artist,
Craig Alan developed his portraiture skills while earning a living to further fund his artistic pursuits. Since that point, the artist has been honing in on his craft and creating something more than your average portrait. He represents people as an amalgam of other people. The artist's portfolio boasts a series of inventive portraits of iconic figures whose visage appears to be composed of tiny pixels. Upon closer inspection, the spectator can see that the pixels are, in fact, people.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jul 2, 2012 -
14 comments
Kevin J. Weir is an artist, making ads (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5), and more interestingly, not ads. In the latter category, he has made 3 stand-alone sites:
the Flux Machine, a tumblr of public domain images turned into animated GIFs, ranging from amusing to surreal (with an extra dash of Lovecraft), which
Cartoon Brew likened to
Terry Gilliam and
Stan VanDerBeek;
Nyan Waits, another spin-off of the
Nyan Cat meme/theme, now with more Tom Waits; and
Loud Portraits, an interactive portrait gallery.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 4, 2012 -
9 comments
"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."
[more inside]
posted by cjelli
on Jan 25, 2012 -
9 comments
Marked. Photographer Claire Felicie photographed the marines of the 13th infantry company of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, before, during and after their deployment in Uruzgan.
posted by jokeefe
on Dec 18, 2011 -
20 comments
Black And White Portraits of the Homeless "Lee Jeffries' career began as a sports photographer, capturing the beautiful game of football in Manchester. Then a chance meeting with a homeless woman living in the streets of London changed his life forever. He has since dedicated himself to capturing gripping portraits of the disenfranchised.
Shooting exclusively in black and white, Lee Jeffries’ 135+ pictures can be viewed in his Flickr Photostream. The majority are closeup portraits with incredible detail. Each photograph exudes so much raw character and depth, you find yourself studying each shot with great intensity."
posted by parrot_person
on Dec 16, 2011 -
42 comments
Britain's finest Baroque portraitist , on a par with Frans Hals, has been all but forgotten, but a new BBC documentary and associated website seek to address that. William Dobson, 1611-46, was painter to Charles I's court during the English Civil War, and the turmoil of the period meant that much of his biography and even the names of the subjects of his portraits were lost. But
many of his portraits have survived, and they're astonishing.
[more inside]
posted by rory
on Oct 1, 2011 -
18 comments
Drew Gardner is an English photographer with a wide range of interests (
Eccentrics,
Guinness records) though perhaps his most beguiling collection is of
Descendants, portraits of, well, descendents of the rich and powerful in some of their most iconic poses.
Bonus video of Helen Pankhurst being set up as her great grandmother Emmeline, with audio of the great suffragette herself
posted by IndigoJones
on Sep 15, 2011 -
13 comments
"It had a sign outside it saying Museum of the Americas, but no one ever visited it. Anyway, so he opened this door, turned on the lights one by one, and
the sight that met my eyes is something I shall never, ever forget because instead of a congregation of people in this disused church,
it was a congregation of portraits."
Philip Mould, an art expert and a host of the British version of Antiques Roadshow, describes an early business trip where he met
Earle Newton. Newton's home grown Museum of the Americas,
a collection of over 300 rare 17th- and 18th-century English and American portraits, was housed in a nondescript church on the side of a road in rural Vermont. The collection, later valued at over nine million dollars, became the
Earle W. Newton Center for British and American Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design upon Newton's death.
[via]
posted by jessamyn
on Nov 9, 2010 -
14 comments
"During the 1860s, several photographers based in Moscow and St. Petersburg produced series of cartes-de-visite showing Russian 'types.' These
remarkable portraits provide a fascinating record of working-class townspeople, artisans, street vendors and peasants, some staged performing an activity, such as drinking tea or gaming, and some photographed in the performance of their occupation."
posted by gman
on Aug 23, 2010 -
22 comments
Retratos Pintados "Since the late 19th century through the 1990s, hand-painted photographic portraits were a common feature in homes in the rural areas of the northeastern Brazilian states. At a time when black-and-white photographs were not considered dramatic enough, the retratos
pintados (“painted portraits”) glamorized and idealized their subjects. Black-and-white family photos were enlarged and painted, conferring status on members of the family and portraying them as icons or saints. Using oil washes and other techniques specific to the region, local artisans embellished clothing with pattern and color, smoothed wrinkles, added jewelry or resurrected deceased relatives, illustrating the fantasies and desires of their customers."
posted by puny human
on Jul 19, 2010 -
7 comments
"she talked to me for a long time. she shared stories of staying in london and paris and that wonderful feeling that accompanies being there. she talked of gardening and music and even stress. we hit it off like old friends." .... Joshua Langlais spends a couple of hours every day looking for a stranger to talk with and photograph. He's done this every day since September 8, 2008. The results of his work can be seen at
I ♥ Strangers.
[more inside]
posted by bdragon
on Mar 25, 2010 -
20 comments
