Blog Prompt #7

On this particular day, I saw mainly photographs of people, most of them static, but some dynamic. Landscapes were the other kind of photograph I encountered the most often, in restaurants or hanging in the halls of buildings. Yet the portraits were almost all entirely personal ones, in small frames on my desk, or given to my roommate, tacked above her desk. Portraits were kept close by, where they could be viewed often. The personal photographs found in my room were very much candid, close-ups of friends and family, some of which I appeared in as well. The imperfections of our skin and the usually bad lighting were all very noticeable, unlike the photos I witnessed in magazines, which were all very carefully composed and perfectly lit.

Personal photos are, I believe, much more concerned about the person or subject within the photo, rather than the composition as a whole. Professional photos, found within advertisements, are not spontaneous; thought has been put into the composition before the picture was taken.

In professional photos as well, the photographer's presence is not as readily acknowledged. We are usually simply witnesses of a scene. In personal photographs, the subject almost always has his or her gaze turned toward the one taking the photograph, and often the expression of the subject is heavily influenced by the one taking the picture. The intent of the photographer is to capture the person or the particular moment in time for no other purpose than to preserve a particular memory. The intent of an advertising photographer is to draw emphasis to a particular part of the image, not necessarily the human model. In portraits of famous people, the objective is to portray the subject in the most flattering (or unflattering, for that matter), way possible. A portrait is taken, basically, in order that the viewer will make a certain opinion about the subject, and the angle and lighting are manipulated so that the viewer will create the desired opinion.