From the course: Narrative Portraiture: Foundations of Portraiture

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What kinds of portraits do you want to take?

What kinds of portraits do you want to take?

From the course: Narrative Portraiture: Foundations of Portraiture

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What kinds of portraits do you want to take?

You know the question that comes after what makes a portrait good is what kind of portraits do you want to make? And I would like to talk about this question in the context of discussing Arnold Newman. Now if you're not familiar with him, he was a phenomenal photographer. Many people refer to him as the father of modern environmental portraiture. It was his passion to get out of the studio and to get into the world and to photograph his subjects in their context. And he went on to say, "We don't take pictures with our cameras, but with our hearts." He continued. He said, "I don't think people should try to take pictures like my pictures" and I'm paraphrasing here. He said, "I take these pictures because of who I am." In other words, we need to take pictures because of who we are. Now I'm not just talking about the positive things. I like what Sam Abell, the National Geographic photographer, once said to me. He said, "Chris, you can gain a lot of inspiration from the negative" and…

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