Portraiture.

Throughout time, photographers have captured portraits of all sorts of people.

The origins of portraiture come from when kings and queens paid artists to paint their portraits making them look powerful. They had complete control of the picture, and how they would be portrayed within it.

This portrait of Henry VIII was painted by Hans Holbien The Younger in 1953. It makes Henry VIII look powerful dressed in gold and expensive clothes. The thing about old portraits, is that they could be edited easily, as they were painted, the artist could change anything about the image to make it  look how the King wanted to look.

Since then, portraiture has come a long way and now can involve 'regular people' going about their daily life doing whatever they'd normally be doing.





Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was a photographer in New York in the 1960's. Her photos were thought to be chic and of people as they came, not posed, or dressed up. This photo is of a transvestite in New York. It shows the unknown side of New York, the side no-one usually sees and was hidden away from the rest of society. A lot of the photos she took, were seen as a little creepy, very blunt and bold.

Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park. This photo is said to be taken of a boy posing, as Diane Arbus moved around him to find the perfect angle to take the photo. As she did so, the boy, Colin Wood got agitated and yelled 'Take the picture already!' Diane Arbus thought this was the perfect facial expression for what she wanted to portray through the photo and took the picture. In most of the other photos of Colin Wood, he is seen as a happy boy, but this picture shows his impatience and annoyance of the whole event.




Portraits can now be seen all around us. They are used on bank notes, coins and in homes and galleries. And is now used in many ways.
Larry Clark

Larry Clark created the book 'Tulsa' of his own photographs. During the years 1963–1971 Clark was addicted to drugs, and a lot of his photos portray his life like a 'diary'. The photos in his book were taken during this time, so many include people taking drugs, naked etc.
Clark showed the side of New York that people hadn't seen before, the often darker, more harrowing stories that were never told and images that shocked the world. There were photos of people injecting themselves and others with drugs (heroin), others holding guns in the air or at themselves and some of people participating in sex. The photos were shocking to some people, but just showed hidden day-to-day life stories usually left un-told. I find his photos can be shocking, but at the same time they are a  true to life representation of real life in the mid to late 60's.