A good portrait is not all about a good camera or a lens. It’s all about the eye, the moment and the expression. Portraits are the collection of unpredictable emotions and feelings.
In portrait photography, we just not only capture face, we capture the true personality behind that face. Portrait photography is very powerful mean to broad your understanding of the world. It’s difficult to capture a person’s personality and his emotions. Artistic nature, technical know-how of photography and the love for humans, these three things things together can create speechless portraits ever. If we see in our surroundings there are a lot of people with pain and happiness and they have a lot of stories. We can capture their happiness and pain and we can tell a whole story of those people with just a photo. And for this to happen one must travel, interact with humans, love human and know how to catch the right moment.
American documentary and advertising photographer Elliott Erwitt once said,
“IT’S ABOUT REACTING TO WHAT YOU SEE, HOPEFULLY WITHOUT PRECONCEPTION. YOU CAN FIND PICTURES ANYWHERE. IT’S SIMPLY A MATTER OF NOTICING THINGS AND ORGANIZING THEM. YOU JUST HAVE TO CARE ABOUT WHAT’S AROUND YOU AND HAVE A CONCERN WITH HUMANITY AND THE HUMAN COMEDY.”
Here’s a selection of speechless portraits. Portraits that speaks thousands of words, Portraits that tells us thousands of stories, that tell us how conflicts, wars, peace and poverty affect the lives of individuals and societies.
AFGHAN GIRL
This portrait which is popularly known as Afghan Girl was photographed by Steve McCurry in refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan back in 1994. Her name is Sharbat Gula. She migrated to Peshawar when war broke out in Afghanistan in 1989. This portrait shows that how war affects the lives of common people.
SABRIDA SHING
Taken by Joey L, meaningful look of this portrait says it all. She hasn’t cut her hair since her husband died.
LEE JEFFRIES
Lee Jeffries is a UK based self-learned photographer. He mostly takes portraits of homeless people.
MIGRANT MOTHER
Photographed by Dorothea Lange, this is a portrait of Florence Thompson and her children. This photo was taken in 1939.
NEIL ARMSTRONG
Photo by Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
LISA KRISTINE
Speechless portrait by Lisa Kristine. This portrait show us the hope of freedom.
WAR IS PERSONAL
War is Personal is collection of photos by Eugene Richards. This series of photos tells us the stories of Americans who have been extremely affected by war. Here are some from the collection.
SURVIVOR FROM HUTO DEATH CAMP
This portrait was take by war photographer James Nachtwey
“This is a picture of a man who had just been liberated from a Hutu death camp where mainly members of the Tutsi tribe were being incarcerated, being starved, beaten, abused and systematically killed. This man happened to be a Hutu himself, but because he didn’t support the genocide, he was subjected to the same treatment. On the most basic level, I hope that people when they look at this work will engage themselves with it and not shut down, not turn away from it, but realize that their opinion counts for something, that they become part of a constituency, and people who have the power to make decisions that affect the lives of thousands of people know that there’s a constituency forming out there, and they have to do something about it.” – James Nachtwey
TIBETAN REFUGEE
This portrait was taken by Phil Borges.
SADHU
Photographed by famous travel photographer Joel Santos.
BEFORE THEY PASS AWAY
Portrait by Jimmy Nelson
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEN EYES
Portraiture by David Lazar
