Round Five Portraits
ortraiture is always a challenge. It can be easy to become overwhelmed by our own creativity, or distracted by the technicalities of studio flash, or confused by the pattern and modelling of natural light. There’s potential to forget there’s an individual in front of the camera who needs directing and who has a story to tell – a story that it’s our duty to capture in a single frame. A successful portrait has an edge – a certain something that, in a split second, reveals some small detail or nuance about the person. And the beauty of it is, a different photographer a moment later might reproduce something completely different from the same set-up. A good portrait encourages the viewer to look longer and deeper into the image, and possibly come up with an interpretation that even the photographer hadn’t thought of. It’s a wonderfully fulfilling, creative genre, and the top ten images in this month’s round all succeed on a range of levels.
