Upper Canada Village

Would love some feedback on these as its my first attempt at portraits with this kit :)
Please feel free to be as honest as you want!
 
The portraits all feel alive & the black & white treatment works well.

However, it would be nice if you gave a back story to the portraits. Are they your friends? Random people? Event? I'm curious!
 
You have captured a nice 'feel' with these portraits. For me I find the crops a little tight - I'd prefer a bit more space so the subjects can 'breathe'.

Yes, agree with Bill. They are good quality and some good expressions, but I think they need a little more room in the frame. Thanks for sharing..

Great feedback on the framing — Thank you :) I will keep that in mind for next time.

The portraits all feel alive & the black & white treatment works well.

However, it would be nice if you gave a back story to the portraits. Are they your friends? Random people? Event? I'm curious!

These are indeed random people that I've just kindly asked to take portraits of. They were all very kind and accepting of my "space invasion" :)
 
You have captured a nice 'feel' with these portraits. For me I find the crops a little tight - I'd prefer a bit more space so the subjects can 'breathe'.

A valid observation especially in terms of conventional portraiture, but think of the validity of this presentation also: when you present like this, you are "in their face" at an uncomfortable "distance" which forces you to confront not just the portrait of the person, but you own reaction to them and the lack of context.

I would say that the old "guideline" about leaving room for your subject to "breathe" is sometimes really about our own breath, lol. That is, when someone is framed this closely it feels wrong because unless you know that person such a close framing takes us out of our "comfort zone".

The close framing is part of the reason I really like them in this case: 1) It's not typical 2) You really SEE them as just a face -- no context and you have to supply your relationship to the photo and the person. There just isn't anything there to suggest it.

In fact, I think the request for a "backstory" comes from that same place: we are confronting a human being so close in that soul-exposing b/w presentation but we have NOTHING to anchor it to in our understanding.

To me, that makes these more art than craft -- whether it was intentional or not, I think there's something to be said for sometimes making the viewer supply the "story" and for them to do it from a place that is not a comfortable known place.
 
A valid observation especially in terms of conventional portraiture, but think of the validity of this presentation also: when you present like this, you are "in their face" at an uncomfortable "distance" which forces you to confront not just the portrait of the person, but you own reaction to them and the lack of context.

I would say that the old "guideline" about leaving room for your subject to "breathe" is sometimes really about our own breath, lol. That is, when someone is framed this closely it feels wrong because unless you know that person such a close framing takes us out of our "comfort zone".

The close framing is part of the reason I really like them in this case: 1) It's not typical 2) You really SEE them as just a face -- no context and you have to supply your relationship to the photo and the person. There just isn't anything there to suggest it.

In fact, I think the request for a "backstory" comes from that same place: we are confronting a human being so close in that soul-exposing b/w presentation but we have NOTHING to anchor it to in our understanding.

To me, that makes these more art than craft -- whether it was intentional or not, I think there's something to be said for sometimes making the viewer supply the "story" and for them to do it from a place that is not a comfortable known place.

A very good write up. Thanks for the insight.
As I mentioned earlier these were all strangers to me and I approached them kindly and they were very nice and allowed me to capture a piece of them with my camera.
 
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