August Sander

August Sander;


Pair Portraits

After finding a powerpoint on the VLE made by one of my tutors about portraiture photography, the work of August Sander caught my eye. Whether i chose to create portraits of pairs in my own photography is yet unknown however i feel it is a very interesting concept to explore when researching into portrait photography. There were many images of individuals by August sander however the ones which caught my eye most were the ones which had pairs in. In my first shoot i chose to capture images of my subjects mostly up against a brick wall, rather than a blank white canvas like the work of most of the photographers i have so far researched. August Sanders work reminded me of my own work more so than other photographers i have looked at up to now because of this idea of photographing the subject/s using what ever area they're in as their background. I feel this choice between using a blank canvas or the natural background of the area when creating portraits of people is an important choice to make, as the environment someone is in can often give more of an idea of who the person is or what their profession is ect. 

Something else I've picked up on August Sanders work which i feel is a very important choice to make is whether to title each individual image or not. Some photographers I've researched will title the series of portraits as a whole where as others title each individual image. I personally feel i prefer the idea of titling each image separately as again it gives more clues and ideas to the viewer as to who the subject in the image is. I prefer this idea rather than being left to completely surmise who the character is or what they do. The use of a title in my opinion gives more context and meaning to the image. its often interesting to look at the image, surmise what you will about the person, then read the title, as often the title may shock as it tells you something about the person you would never have thought or it may often completely fit what you have surmised about that person or the image. 

August Sander

Boxer, 1928

Boxers

August Sander

Blinde Kinder 1930

Blind Children

August Sander

Burgliche Kinder 1925

middle class children

This range of images i have chosen show the importance also in considering field of depth when capturing portraits. Some of the subjects are stood up again a wall and some stand with distance between the camera and their background. Its interesting to notice how some backgrounds appear in focus while in other images, the subject is the only object in focus. 

August Sander

Arbeitermuter mit kind, 1928

Working class mother with child