Although I have posted this portrait before I thought that I would utilise the vocabulary and technique we have just learned to explain why it appealed to me as a portrait.

By Bryan Schutmaat from his "Grays The Mountain Sends' project










The first thing people do when they look at an image is make a connection, do they like or dislike the image, they make a personal judgement as to whether the photograph is aesthetically pleasing to their personal taste.
For me it was very aesthetically pleasing, which in turn captures my attention. It retains my gaze and encourages me to look closer.
Technically for me it was very sharp, the photographer focused in directly on the subjects eyes and brought a connection between the viewer and the subject. He used a shallow depth of field which helped emphasise the subjects eyes, and although we know it is a flat 2D image, the depth of field used brings the subject forward giving the optical illusion of realism, almost a visual appearance of three dimensional. If the photographer had used an aperture of say f32 to 45 everything would have been in focus and become a little flat. He had the subject far enough away from the background to completely blow it out of focus, so you do not even recognise what the background is, which helps to bring the subject to the forefront and isolate him. He is the main subject.
Compositionally I feel the photograph works very well, the top of the head has not been cropped off, the eyes are almost on the upper third horizontal intersecting line with the underside of the nose at the centre of the frame giving an overall sense of balance, utilising the full frame.
Colour and exposure work very well, you can see it is a colour photograph, but if feels as though it is drained of colour almost complimenting the expression on the subjects face, it does not have the vivocity of say a Steve  McCurry colour portrait but more of a look of an early Saul Leiter.
From the subject himself I feel you get the impression he's been through the mill so to speak, a working man that has had his hard times and I would use the word 'drained' again.
The jacket and the colour give the sense of cold, he is dressed to keep warm, yet he does not give out the impression of being poor, which would beg the question 'is he still in work?'. Yet his expression is of hard times, almost a sadness.
I find the image a little passive, although my gaze does look around the image to take in the full composition, you always find your point of interest back at the eyes, almost seeing into the soul.
In conclusion I would say the image is very strong, it captures and holds your attention, it makes you ask questions. You can see with the title of the project that the image will work well as part of a narrative, which to me does not give the impression of mindless documentation but more of a personal visualised concept that will have evolved as the photographer progressed with each captured image.