We had a discussion today on portraits, and how diverse it can be, what people expect and how different their expectations. We also discussed that there are three points to consider

• the photographer
• the subject
• the viewer

Now - if we take these points into consideration, we have to think about who is going to be looking at our final images, which is the person who is going to be marking and grading our portraits.

If I was an FDA student I would be looking at this brief a little different and be trying to aim my final images at the general public and trying to produce a commercially acceptable image, that at the end of the day would draw people in to my studio, but I'm not - I am an arty farty BA student who should really take a back drop and portable lights out into a farmers field and set it up for taking a picture of  a scarecrow, or setting something up in the studio with my model in a certain way to capture nothing but their shadow or even just the back of their head.

I understand before you can run you first have to crawl and then walk, but with such an open brief as "deliver 3 portrait images" are we to show first that we understand you need to show; catch lights in the eyes to bring them alive, have the person looking down the lens and giving some emotion or feeling (communicating with the viewer), have an even well lit background, everything completely in focus, show that we have had some sort of communication with our subject or can we break some of the rules to produce something a little different - only to get it wrong in printing and end up with orange skin and realise the scarecrow was the best option.