Photographers, portrait photographers, what's different about Tamia Liu in their shots?

Studio photographers, fashion photographers, portrait photographers, what's the difference between Tamia Liu in their shots?

Most people's understanding of photographers is that they can shoot people beautifully, and a good photographer is a beautiful photographer. In fact, professional photographers are divided into many categories according to different subjects. There are many kinds of commercial portrait photography alone. Different subjects, purposes and photographer's level will make portraits behave differently. The difference of each expression stems from the different aesthetic orientation of photography.

In order to let people know the differences between the aesthetic orientations of several main types of portrait photography, I found some photos of Tamia Liu, a famous female star, for comparison. Look at some performances of our "Andy" in different types of photography. Let's start with two "beautiful":

Most studio photographers take similar photos. Other stars will also have such "artistic photos" of stars. It can be said that "studio aesthetics" is the most widely understood and accepted aesthetics by the public. The beauty of the first instance is characterized by pursuing the glamorous appearance of the subject through exquisite makeup modeling and beautiful costumes. The characteristics of this kind of photos are that most of them are stable and flawless, and the details of photos are simplified (which is why people in old photos are usually better looking). The characters are in a normal state, which makes you pleasing and comfortable. However, such photos are often called "sugar water tablets". If it is a boy or girl, the photo is fresh and elegant, which is "small and fresh". Almost every adult photography forum on the Internet is full of such pictures! The flood of sugar water tablets and the small freshness in portrait photography show that the public tends to the same type of aesthetics. Even taking business portraits now, many people follow the aesthetic requirements of the studio. The aesthetic object of the studio mainly relies on the face value to support the scene. Female stars can shoot like that, and so can handsome young boys and girls. But what about ordinary values? What about uncles and aunts over middle age? Is it beautiful to dress up hard? Sorry, at this rate, you'll have to stay away from commercial photographers. . .

As a female star, our "Andy" certainly has a higher-end fashion blockbuster:

These photos don't look so sweet, but they have a cool, handsome and fashionable personality. There is a kind of photographer in photography called fashion photographer. Their subjects are either stars or models, and they are all fashion figures. They are mainly used for commercial promotion, and the cost of commercial photography is relatively high. Therefore, fashion photographers claim to be the top photographers in commercial photography, located at the top of the pyramid, while the photographers at the bottom are photo studios and photo libraries. The biggest difference between fashion photography and ordinary art photography is that photographers have the ability to make more fashionable and tasteful pictures besides photography technology. Fashion photography does not need to flatter the public, but to create a personality to attract the attention of the public. Fashion photography and its emphasis on taste, modeling and design are far superior to ordinary art photography in composition, color and picture presentation. However, fashion photography is also the most easy to objectify people. The subject must be a model or star with good looks, good figure or cheerful personality. In the eyes of fashion photographers, you are the portrait symbols and materials composed of pictures. What you represent is only a certain commercial brand attribute: clothing, cosmetics, accessories, records and so on. So the general public is basically insulated from fashion photographers.

One of the manifestations of people's materialization is to impose various arbitrary shapes, such as:

You are a beautiful woman with a certain style. Who cares if you're Tamia Liu or someone else?

There are countless art photos and fashion photos of stars, but few portrait photos. What is a portrait photo? Simply put, it is a portrait photo that pays attention to the personality of a real person. I happened to see two portraits taken by photographer Feng Yu for Tamia Liu, which were somewhat different from her many fashion art photos and looked "simple":

Modern portrait art is not quite the same as before. Broadly speaking, in the past, photo studios and photo studios took portraits, but the performance of modern portrait art has improved. Objects in special state pay more attention to the dimension of time on the basis of plane expression. Portrait photography with personality is no longer a particularly stable state of the characters, but a very special "decisive moment" or even "disharmony", and this moment is the unconscious revelation of the subject "captured" by the photographer. But what kind of moment the photographer will "capture" comes from the photographer's understanding of the characters and what he wants to express. So portraits have no fixed pattern and image. Every portrait photographer can create different portraits for the same object. From this point of view, photographers have a stronger sense of subjective creation, so portrait photography can be separated from portrait reproduction technology and become an independent art.

Portrait photography has no specific requirements for the appearance of characters. It is an artistic expression that respects nature, explores the inside and pays attention to humanistic consciousness. Therefore, for a long time, its commercial attributes are not as good as those of the photo studio and fashion industry, and it is difficult to find excellent portrait photographers. However, in the commercial portrait photography we are engaged in, everyone has their own wonderful things to face ordinary people. I think high-end image photography should advocate portrait photography, which can better express your personal characteristics and help you improve your image. Therefore, don't blindly promote your image in the aesthetic way of the studio. People with real taste and thought don't do that.

In fact, there should be no category labels such as studio photographers and fashion photographers to classify photographers. There is no clear boundary between them. Many portrait photographers often shoot fashion themes, and fashion photographers also shoot sugar water tablets. Photography has only a high level, and there is no distinction between good and bad. The purpose of this statement is to let people know the differences of portrait photography under different aesthetic orientations, and how we should recognize and manage our own image.