Diane Arbus
I started off with this photograph, because it really demonstrates Arbus' demented ways of portraiture. Here you have this nice kid playing in the park, and she twists it, to make it look strange and abnormal, and almost disturbing. Available light, to me, is the most beautiful lighting, and yet even with her use of it, the portrait is everything but beautiful.
Portraiture is to display character and tell a story about a person and their personality. This picture has a lot of character to it, but I don't think the model would want to display themselves as this. The person's makeup, outfit, and positioning, is all unflattering. Im not quite sure if this is a man or a woman, it seems as if one leg has been shaved and one hasn't been.
You can tell in this portrait that the person was trying to glam themselves up. With the curlers, long nails, lipstick, penciled in eyebrows etc, but this portrait isnt glamourous. Again I cant even tell if this is a boy or a girl. The nails and hair tell me one thing, then the hands and face tell me another.
Overall Diane Arbus
She uses lighting that doesnt flatter the model, mostly one light source. She's not interested in capturing beauty within the people shes photographing. She wants to create a depth within her photographs, that looks more at what the person is thinking, rather than what their personality is. They're not meant to be fashionable or a pleasure to look at.
Edward Steichan
As you can see here, in contrast to Diane Arbus, Steichan uses multiple lights that flatters the scenery and the models. The models are posing unnaturally for the scenery, all to make themselves look elegant.
Im not quite sure if this is an available light portrait, but even so, its still quite beautiful, Steichan makes sure to make his subjects looks good in their environment and displays fashion and glamour throughout all his photographs.
This image is a fashion shot meant to show the beauty and elegance of the model. The model looks beautiful. She's positioned in an attractive way. The lighting shows her femininity. The background compliments the foreground. Everything in the frame is intended and well thought out.
Overall Edward Steichan
His portraits are more about the beauty of the person within the image, not the personality. He uses multiple lights that flatters the models. positioning, facial expression, background, foreground and props are all considered and done well.
Steichan vs Arbus
These two artists are complete opposites in their ways of portraiture. One is beautiful and the other is repulsing. Their lighting patterns are different. Steichan is very consistent with his lighting patterns. Whereas Arbus just uses the light thats available, or used light thats unflattering. Arbus doesn't use unique backgrounds to convey beauty in her models, but uses them to get a better understanding of the models surroundings, so you look more into what they are thinking. Steichan is all about beauty and fashion, he uses props and surroundings of a princess, or high class person, to make them look more glamourous.
Sally Mann
Sally Mann often photographed her children in natural settings, and made the photographs unique. Like this photograph here of her daughter swimming, was transformed into an almost abstract image. She places her children exactly how she wants them.
Her photographs were regarded as strange when so many of them contained her naked children. She was able to turn it into a style, and work with her surroundings. Each of her photographs looked posed, but in an almost natural way.
Lighting was always very important in her portraits. The children probably stood in the water for hours to wait for this shot to be just perfect.
Overall Sally Mann
Her portraits were well thought out and amazing. She perfected her lighting and composition. Her subjects are used in a less traditional way. The portraits weren't about the happiness and beauty of children like most shots would be. She put more of an artistic view into the composition and meaning beyond the children.
Arnold Newman
Arnold Newman's style was similar to Diane Arbus'. He puts his subjects in odd scenarios, and his portraits are more about the composition and thoughts of the sitter, rather than the beauty. Although in this image there is some beauty coming from the composition and lighting. The image is nice to look at, so that's a contrast with Arbus. Also I think that the images look like they are influenced by Steichan because if the environmental composition.
These images are very nicely lit, and the composition compliments the portraits as well. Although the expressions and positioning of the models leans towards Arbus, you can clearly tell the different between the two artists. Also Newman has a more related background with his subjects. Arbus' models didn't seem to belong in the scenario they were in, whereas Newmans do, they look strange overall, but natural in their environment.
