This photo by Heisler was a part of one of his portfolio series called “Miners”, which is a photo series of portraits of miners. I was immediately attracted to this photo out of the photo series. The way Heisler composed this photo was well done and unique. Heisler fills the frame with the subjects face and appears to use a shallow depth of field which makes the subject stand out more. The lighting in the photo is also impressive. It looks like Heisler used the off camera flash in an outdoor environment. The lighting is lightly flashed over the subjects face, giving it a very soft and natural look. Due to the combining the factors of the nice and smooth lighting along with the way the photo was composed, the subject in this photo gives the subject a very soft and delicate feeling and look to him. Even though the subject who is a miner has a very scruffy and rigid appearance to him, the lighting makes him bring out emotion. The lighting that is reflected in his eyes even make him appear to be emotional and raw and the eyes are what stand out the most in this photo to me. Heisler does a good job not only in this portrait but in a majority of his portraits giving his subjects a raw emotional look but still being in their natural state. Heisler handles lighting and composition well to achieve this nice contrast.
Good description of this series. Heisler does fill the frame in the image that you selected. Also, having the subject’s head at a diagonal makes the image more dynamic than if the man’s head was completely vertical.