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Dawoud Bey Photographs

I think what interesting about his photographs were the positions he had the students in, the time he had to set everything up and take the picture, how he position his lighting in specific ways depending on the subject. In some of the pictures the some of the subjects depending on what they are wearing it will compliment the background, moreover the lighting he use for some of them will be brighter or darker for some of them. In one picture a girl with dark clothes had lighting that focused on one side of her body and the other side had a lot of contrast to the light. the background also followed this as well. In another picture a girl was surrounded by lighter colors so Dawoud  didn’t use a lot of lighting, most likely he used soft lighting for her.             In Dawoud photos of these kids another interesting aspect is the facial expressions each of them give. Some give a pose that more expressive than the others but the all portray something in a unique way, moreover some of the subjects are posing very differently compared to one another some are standing, others are leaning against a table, one was posing on top of a table. There were a lot of very different poses he had them do and depending on the poses was how the lighting was set up. Another thing about his photo was the depth of field in his photos, all of the background was blurred but not to the point where you didn’t know where the setting was and what was in the background. However it was still blurry enough so that the subject and their surroundings are clear which also put more focus on them in addition with the lighting he had hon them.

Inspiration-Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey photographed high school students in their schools for his series Class Pictures. In a new post, respond to this work (300 words min). Characterize Bey’s portrait style. How does he use expression, pose, framing, light, and foreground background relationships to create these sympathetic portraits of young people? What ideas did you get about how you might approach portrait photography from looking at this work?

View a selection of Class Pictures:

https://mam.org/bey/gallery.htm

and the interview with Dawoud Bey about creating this work: