Portraiture- Larry Clark

Portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that display the expression, personality and mood of the subjects. When portraiture first started all the images where mostly artificial, the subjects almost puts on a mask so they appear almost divine and thus when portraiture first started it was only the rich and powerful who could afford to have portraits, this could be seen as a symbol of status but with the invention of the camera portraiture became accessible to everyone and anyone. This slowly evolved into a more natural art as many photographer's such as Tony Vaccaro only took pictures when his subject's were unaware. There have been many prominent portrait photographers such as Tony Vaccaro, Diane Arbus and Larry Clark. Larry Clark started his photography career as he documented him and his friends abusing drugs, having sex and violence, he then produced these photos into a book entitled 'Tulsa' and the the book is seen almost as a visual diary. These photos exposed the world to the real face of youth during that time period of drugs, violence, underage sex and a lack of concern towards for there well being. In my opinion Larry Clark's Tulsa photos are the best example of portraiture as in each image the subjects are completely natural, no poses and it conveys the attitude of youth in that time period as living in the moment.