Portraits

From the ubiquitous and pervasive ‘selfie’ to the great works of art, we are obsessed with our own image - the images of ourselves, of the rich and powerful, of the man or woman in the street - and just as obsessed with the notion of watching ourselves being watched, ourselves watching others.

Detail, Diego Rivera Mural, Detroit Institute of Arts

I have just updated the home page of my photography website to show three different images related to portraits. The photographs come from two different places: the colour photograph contains a detail from the fabulous Diego Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts, while the two black and white photographs were taken at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where we recently saw the striking exhibition “Uninvited - Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment.”

The Rivera image stands out for me for its snarling representation of the factory manager, and the irony and social commentary embodied in the juxtaposition of the mural image with the plants in the foreground. The Vancouver Art Gallery photographs are meaningful to me for different reasons - the pathos of the woman and her wheelchair before the rude health and vigour of the young men in the portraits, and the multiple images of viewers viewing - and the implied presence of the photographer watching and photographing - in the second image.

Do take a look!