portrait inspirations

Jeff Widener

     Jeff Widener is an American Photojournalist born in August, 1956. His interest in photography began at a very early age, and he was eager to learn about it and raise up money to buy his own Nikon camera. He moved to Los Angeles and was then supervised by a well known photography instructor. The same year, he won a national scholastic/ kodak photography scholarship out of 8,000 kids who entered.

    Widener is best known for his iconic picture of the man standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen square. He is also known for documenting/ photographing over 100 countries involving civil wars and war issues. He was also. the first journalist to file digital images from the South Pole. He's received and been nominated for numerous awards for his work.

Lighting: day lighting, cloudy
Location: outside
Camera settings: 
Body position: standing straight, not facing camera
Clothing: military uniform
Composition: the picture was cropped so that it would only be the soldier




The tank man is a picture i've always enjoyed because it was a very dramatic real life event, and the image captures it well.
       

I enjoy pictures where you can tell it's not posed, where it shows something far deeper than someone posing can express.

Steven Mccurry

     Steven McCurry is an American photographer born February 24th, 1950. He attended Penn State and graduated in 1974. He got a degree in theatre arts instead of cinematography. He's received numerous awards. These include: National Press Photographers Association, Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal; and two first-place prizes in the World Press Photo contest. 

    His photography career started when he crossed the Pakistan' Afghanistan border in disguise. He wanted to capture rebel-controlled areas of Afghanistan before the soviet invasion. He's also documented other wars/ conflicts, such as the Iran-Iraq War, Lebanon Civil War, the Cambodian Civil War, and the Gulf War. He focuses more so on the people involved in these conflicts, and not so much the conflicts themselves. This famous image, for example, is a refugee girl from Afghanistan. 

lighting : The lighting is coming from the left side of the girl's face.

Location : inside, refugee camp

Camera Settings - 

Clothing and props- a red hijab

composition - The picture is cropped in a way that it mostly focuses on the girl's face, the red hijab and her tan skin contrasts with her eye color. 

  I like this picture because it show's the girl's culture and traditions in an artistic way.

 I like the boy's eyes and how they're multicolored. It also proves a point to show how young the boy is but still having war injuries.

Douglas Kirkland