portrait history

Photographic Portraiture - a short historical sketch

Wolfgang Hastert

2000 years ago• Sculptures, statues, paintings

Supporters of the portrait arts

• Churches, the pope, kings, Medici (Firence)• Tell the story of religion• Elite, upper class, commissioned works• Remember the deceased• Renaissance 15th century

Dramatic lighting

Mona Lisa 1503 – 1517 sfumato/ smoked soft painting

Rembrandt Light

Painting versus photo technique

David Hockney / camera lucida

Chiaroscuro lighting

Tenebrism light – violent contrast and spot light

Specular / contrast lighting

Julia Margaret Cameron 1815 -1879 pictorialist photography

Edward S Curtis 1889 – 1952

$ 75,000.00 in 1906

• Paid by JP Morgan for book series on Native Indians ( 500 images )

August Sander 1876 - 1964

Edward Weston 1886 - 1958

Walker Evans 1903 – 1975 documentary style portraits

Lighting styles derived from painting

• Sfumato soft

• Chiaroscuro hard light

• Tenebrism dramatic chiaroscuro/ spot light

The nature of portraits

• Portraits are always about the subject, their likenesses, their personalities, and their lives…

How about the influence of the photographer ???