PORTRAITS & SELF PORTRAITS

The simplest definition is that portraits are artistic representations of the likeness of person.

Photographic portraits are of friends or strangers, formal or informal, staged or captured spontaneously. The subject is most often aware of the camera. The aim of the photographer is to express something about the subject’s character, essence, likeness, shape, and even mood.

Canadian portrait master, Christopher Wahl, says that when he’s trying to capture a portrait, he’s looking for the “awkward decisive moments of people doing nothing.”

Portraits have less to do with technical prowess and more to do with the photographer’s ability to communicate with their subject, to seek those moments of expression that convey emotion and meaning.

Please make note, this is a new category, similar but separate from the PEOPLE Category. You may enter the same image in both categories.

Helen Breznik 2014 MPA Portraits Winner