Portrait Inspiration - Duane Michals

        Inspiration for my portrait work work in this assignment came from Duane Michals. Michals is a 93 year old American photographer, who is well known for his portrait work showcasing black and white images with multiple different exposures atop one another. What really caught my eye and pushed me into looking more into Michals is his work shown above, titled Rene Magritte. Interestingly, through my research, I found that Rene Magritte is an artist who... (always seemed to wear the hat seen above)... but also is well known for his quote, "Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible." I think even though this isn't Michals' quote, it does well to describe the image. It is almost if Michals was on a mission to try and prove Magritte's quote wrong, while depicting a portrait of him. Noticed above, the viewer sees Magritte, in more places than one, but his figure and image doesn't necessarily hide anything. Michals opens up this possibility that we can see what may be hidden, that Magritte doesn't take away from the scene, and if anything, his faint body adds extensively to it. 

        To go further, Michal's uses this black and white photography, coupled with a "disappearing" model to almost give a spooky scene, one that is riddled with death, or the soon coming death. One may say that Magritte is appearing into the photo, but I would argue that he is disappearing from it. The dark, indented cushion on the chair, the sad expression, and a canvas unpainted suggests to me a feeling of ending but not finished. The canvas being blank tells me that a job is unfinished at first, but then makes me feel as if Magritte is posed in front of it as a sign saying he is the painting. Looking at the technical quality and seeing as much as I can of this image, I do notice the overlap of exposures with the shaky easel. However, rather seeing this as an accident, which I do understand Michals lacked the photoshop ability, I almost see it as adding to the photo, and possibly left in on purpose. Once again coupled with the dark nature, the indented cushion, and fading figures, it gives a feel of time passing. 

        Lastly, Duane Michals published photography revolving around multiple exposures, and/or unnatural effects. looking through lots of his photographs, I see a lot of black and white composition, taking away colors and instead filling the images with a sort of darker or more somber meanings. In my own portrait work I am going to attempt to incorporate less colors to give a sort of similar effect, but I also want to keep the right kinds of light and color. As for the multiple exposures, I want to test myself to see how capable I am in providing such a story. I understand Michals photography portraying a fading out effect, where individuals are essentially losing life, but in my own portraits, I want to use this effect to continue to tell a current story about my subjects.