Inspiration 

Another photographer who is a big influence when looking at portrait photography is Steven McCurry. Born in Philadelphia, McCurry studied film at university before going on to work for a local paper, after many years of freelance work, McCurry made this first trip to India, he made his way across the country exploring and documenting as much as he could. 

After several months of travel, he found himself crossing the border into Pakistan, which is where he met a group of refugees from Afghanistan, who helped smuggle him across the border into their country, around this time the Russian invasion had cut off journalist from the western world, McCurry was the man brought the world the first images of the conflict in Afghanistan, thus putting a face to the on-going issues. This is also how one of his most famous pieces was created. “Afghan Girl” which appeared on national geographic cover in 1985. This image became so powerful as the wars all over the country were bringing mass destruction and devastating news, yet this image of this beautiful little girl with piercing eyes gave the world a little hope and reminded everyone that it is real people being affected, I feel as if it gave the western world a emotional connection to the subject and the emotion she felt at the time

When looking at more of McCurry’s portrait work, he seems to draw a lot of attention to his subjects’ eyes in addition to this he also uses colour to compliment the subject as well as use it to set the mood of the image
McCurry also uses lighting to covey the subjects narrative, the harsh lighting on the subjects face makes the image come across as quite intense almost like a shot from a police investigation whereas other images have a softer form of lighting making the image seem almost like an oil painting.

I will try incorporate this lighting style when shooting my images as I want the viewers to feel a connection with my subject and easily be able to understand the narrative of the image.