Project 10 - Prework

A fine art portrait is one where the artist is given free reign to make their decisions. With this agency artists uses compositional techniques, lighting, and things of that sort to express mood and the photographer's personal views, feelings, and interests.

This portrait by Gordon Parks is of a man lifting a manhole cover and coming out of a manhole. I think it is a metaphor for how black individuals are escaping the confines of oppression.

This portrait of Damien Hirst by Steve Pyke shows the photographer expressing himself by having Hirst make a funny face and wear fake eyeballs, both of which add to the humor of the photo.


The intent of a commercial portrait is to convince someone to buy something or express the position of the magazine. This can be an ad trying to sell a thing, a magazine cover trying to attract possible readers to make them buy the magazine, or other things like that. It uses color and compositional techniques to catch people's eye.

This portrait of Kate Moss taken to be published in Vogue is for commercial purposes, as it was intended to be published in the magazine. It also has characteristics of commercial portraits; the eye contact is interesting to readers and the high contrast is consistent with the rest of the work found in the magazine.

This portrait by Steve Scalone intended to premote a cooking show is also for commercial purposes. Leading lines draw the viewer to the man and his pizza who are assumably what the cooking show is focused around.



These photos of David Bowie are very different. The one on the left is taken by Helmut Neuman and is a fine art portrait, while the one on the right is a commercial portrait by Michael Ochs. Neuman's gains its interest from Bowie's expression, facial shape, and glasses, while Ochs' is more immediately eye catching, due to Bowie's pose, clothing, and the circle on his forehead.