Dawit Samson - Weekly Artist Post #16

Graciela Iturbide 

1.) Graciela Iturbide, a Mexican photographer, portraits can be seen above. Irurbide uses the portrait orientation with the subject slightly to the right of the middle mark. In the first picture she uses the extreme contrast between the dress & mask of the subject to make them pop out from the dark background. While in the last photo most of it is dark except for the main subject's skin color, which is fairly light compared to the surrounding colors. The contrast between those colors attracts the viewer's eye to that specific area. The middle one, though there isn't opposing contrasts like the other two, uses lines to direct the viewer's eye to the subject. The shadows to the right of the subject and also the triangles all point to the subject. 

2.) The main theme of Iturbide's pictures above is varied since they were picked from different projects. Still these three pictures do still poses a common theme: a portrait of someone with their face covered. This theme can be tangible with the idea that people act the way they want to be perceived. 

3.) Graciela Iturbide's picture are lovely shots of death and the subjects' arcane story. Her use of contrast to help with focusing on something is done very well. Her story telling is even better. One of the reasons why, for me, is that she doesn't give much, she doesn't give the cliche images associated with portraits. She gives viewers a different look on life, the one that most don't want to talk about.