Saturday, February 13, 2010

Inspirations

I stumbled upon another inspiring portrait today, this time by Andre du Plessis from sunny South Africa. To me it is a step beyond diptych or split technique, because he managed to take two photographs in one single shot.
First, we see a portrait with superb tones:

...and as if this wouldn't be enough, the photo develops into an emotional-environmental portrait on the right side.
That's what I mean with taking one shot and getting two. It could be actually three: far left, single portrait; center, emotional; far right, environmental. The little devil inside makes me longing for something to fill in the space on the right, like another figure in the background or some interesting detail of environment, but perfectionism spoils all the fun.
Bottomline: terrific concept, for me another lesson learned. I need to ask him next time how he produces such delicate low-keyish tones on his portraits of dark-skinned models - quite challenging!

2 comments:

jacques philippe said...

"The little devil inside makes me longing for something to fill in the space on the right, like another figure in the background or some interesting detail of environment"... More than "little Devil" to me.. I think it really misses something like that, as I said in 1x critique. And this is reinforced by square crop which is very suited for environmental portraits. But lacks of environment here. Now OK it is nitpicking for a great image, and
also I have to agree on the low key rendition of colored skin. Andre is incredible at that, it strikes me every time I see a photo from him.

Great blog, a shame I can't read Magyar :) ... and thanks for the link.... and oh yeah I spent some time looking at a specific portrait from the Armenia project.
http://iloapp.balazspataki.com/data/_gallery/public/0/1264346132_resized.jpg?width=374&height=540
You have great portraits but this one is fascinating.

Pataki Balázs said...

Yes, it is missing something like that, agree; but would you dislike (let's say) a wonderful Scarlett Johansson portrait on the ground that she would look better naked? :)

Thanks for visiting!