Portrait+Assignment

= __Yousuf Karsh__ = Karsh was very talented with studio lighting. One of his distinctive practices was lighting hands on a subject separately. Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant of his portrait. He once wrote in one of his Portfolios, "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize." The image of Winston Churchill brought Portrait of Albert Einstein Karsh international prominence, and is claimed to be the most reproduce photographic portrait in history.

**__Richard Avedon__** Avedon was always interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul of its subject. He brought in many famous faces to his studio and photographed them with a large-format 8x10 view camera. His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a sheer white background. Avedon would at times evoke reactions from his portrait subjects by guiding them into uncomfortable areas of discussion or asking them psychologically probing questions. Through these means he would produce images revealing aspects of his subject's character and personality that were not typically captured by others. Marilyn Monore, actor, 1957 Ronald Fischer, Beekeeper, 1981