Taking portrait of someone I know

Well, I thought about my friend LT and it happened that he loved hanging out with me and very supportive. I watched a lot of portraits taken by Robert Frank, Gordon Parks and William Klein but when I started taking photos of LT, I forgot all of the images I learnt about taking portraits.

i was trying to take a photo telling about my friend. I thought the image of my friend as well as the surrounding or his activity would tell something i learnt about him.

so I took so many. he lied down, he sat, he took off his clothe and took shower. He also suggested me to turn on some light and turned off the other light. He is very good at painting and doing photoshop so he actually had better sense than me.

then there were few images I liked

and I also liked this one

but I chose this one to submit

i just love this photo a lot. I dont know how to call it. Maybe not a portrait but it is about LT that I know. I love the mess and the crooked things on the bed as well as the curve of his body. Unfortunately, the instructor rejected it immediately and he said it was not portrait.

Fortunately i borrowed a Canon from another friend and I went out with LT this morning and we took some photos. I did not like much but actually there were few good ones and my friend helped me to adjust the color a bit .

So the number 4 was more suitable for this assignment. The instructor said that I did well to pull out something specific about this person (LT) and made it general. The reason he said so because we were shown the documentary about Diane Arbus, a well-known female photographer who said:

" a photograph has to be specific. ...The more specific you are, the more general it would be". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_0sQI90kYI

or this:

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/10/15/11-lessons-diane-arbus-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

I also found this article, critique of Diane Arbus's work: https://medium.com/@AdamInglis/the-photographer-of-freaks-unpacking-the-exploitative-side-of-diane-arbus-68f901c6a7c4

https://jezebel.com/5242291/diane-arbus-38-years-after-suicide-art-is-made-visible My next assignment is taking a photo of the person I portrayed with an object that identifies them.