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What is Your Favorite Classic Portrait?

Spitfire

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,078
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark.
As a great admirer of both Sophia Loren and the photographer Irving Penn, I have to mention this:
artwork_images_424236030_277752_-2.jpg
 

Sertsa

One of the Regulars
Messages
195
Location
Ohio
John Coltrane recording Blue Train. This was used as the album cover; there's something about the intensity of his expression.
mishra450.jpg



Then there's Saul Bellow, and his gaze into the world:
bellow2.jpg


And James Joyce practicing his other art form, also intense:
joyce650.jpg



I guess I like candid / capture moment photos.

But speaking of intensity of expression, there's also... this:

ann_margret_gallery_25.jpg

(Ann Margaret)

(Edited because I remembered 'Trane went with "Train" for the album title).
 

Dixon Cannon

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,157
Location
Sonoran Desert Hideaway
The one that started it all....

Philadelphia, November 1839. "Robert Cornelius, self-portrait facing front, arms crossed. Inscription on backing: The first light-picture ever taken. 1839." One of the first photographs made in the United States, this quarter-plate daguerreotype, taken in the yard of the Cornelius family's lamp-making business in Philadelphia, is said to be the earliest photographic portrait of a person.

A1a1a.jpg


-dixon cannon
 

Imahomer

Practically Family
Messages
680
Location
Danville, CA.
Gee...
There are some real classics here. I, being a simple man, always think of the portrait of George Washington that used to hang in almost every classroom I've ever been in. I'd love to run across one of them.
 

scotrace

Head Bartender
Staff member
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14,392
Location
Small Town Ohio, USA
Interesting photo, Dixon. I've seen it but did not know the story.

A side photographic history note also: The very first photo was shot out the window of Louis Daguerre's flat, a street scene. I have always understood that the second thing to be photographed, once the process was proven to work, was a nude Parisian Prostitute!
Looking for a source of that....
 

dhermann1

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,154
Location
Da Bronx, NY, USA
I believe there were early experiments with a process of photography that was not permament. The images lasted a few hours or days and then faded away. So these would be the first permament photographic images.
Imagine the frustration of being able to capture an image on paper, but then watch it slowly disappear.
Coo idea for a thread, Hem. Thanks.
 

bombayjack

New in Town
Messages
21
Location
New Jersey
B. F. Socaspi said:
wouk56.jpg


Herman Wouk. Not at all familiar with the man's works, but I love his photo.

Wow, that's Herman Wouk? He's one of my favorite writers. The Winds of War/War and Remembrance is my favorite historical fiction work of all time.
 

BinkieBaumont

Rude Once Too Often
Nancy Cunard the "Naughtiest Brightest Young Thing"

ttp://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3066/2460058600_617fe13626.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/confetta/2460058600/&usg=__LcnEyLqX5b70uIRo0G6yC4UuA14=&h=500&w=387&sz=121&hl=en&start=17&tbnid=vYeXW2VVseX_fM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnancy%2Bcunard%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
 

HadleyH

I'll Lock Up
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4,811
Location
Top of the Hill
There are so many portraits that i like... this is one of them, taken in 1922 by Man Ray, its a kind of stange surrealist photograph, the blurring ocurred by chance he liked it and left it like that! Afterwards, the marquise Casati said that the photo had captured her soul go figure... still, i find it so ahead of it's time...it has to be one of my favorites! :D



mr_casati.jpg
Marquise Casati
 

Lefty

I'll Lock Up
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8,639
Location
O-HI-O
+1 on Man Ray.

With celebrity portraits, you bring your impressions to the viewing. For that reason, I prefer unknown subjects, where the photographer is forced to do the work.

August Sander tells his audience so much about people that they will never meet.
august_sander_brick_worker.jpg


My favorite artist is the Russian Constructivist, Alexander Rodchenko.
I have two of his prints from the original negatives, including this one, Pioneer Girl.
rodchenko56crop768.jpg
 

scotrace

Head Bartender
Staff member
Messages
14,392
Location
Small Town Ohio, USA
This is the Lincoln portrait most often sited for its drama, taken at the tiime of the Gettysburg address. And it is indeed intense and intimate. One of the greatest photographs of all time.

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But I think I prefer this one.

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It's the last known portrait of him, just a few days before his death. He is victorious against all odds, at peace with himself, even showing the trace of a smile as he personally rejoiced at the end of the bloodshed, and the end of slavery. But it just about killed him. The weariness is so very evident. This portrait hangs on the wall in my bedroom as a limited-edition print from the original glass negative, matted and framed for preservation.

By comparison, this was taken just before he left Springfield for Washington in 1861. It's only four years difference:

Lincoln_111860.jpg
 

Emer

One of the Regulars
Messages
257
Location
San Diego, CA
This one always hits me very deeply; John Jr. saluting his father's casket.

salute.jpg


And of couse this one, showing the pure elation of vicotry.

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