Animus — Portrait photography
Portrait photography for the hip-hop artist Animus: press and cover shots. Studio portraits of the artist Animus. Against a dark teal gradient he stands in a…
Studio portraits of the artist Animus. Against a dark teal gradient he stands in a patterned windbreaker — twice in strict profile, once head-on with arms folded, once half-turned. Little light, a clean edge, nothing else in the frame. A press portrait in this genre is passed on heavily treated, so the original has to be clean and contrasty enough to survive a grade.
The strict profile is the frame this set rests on: the head lifted slightly, the beard a clean edge against the teal gradient, the jacket with its black-and-white print the only pattern in the picture.
In the studio a gradient background is the shortest answer to a dark portrait. It gives the head a lighter surface to stand against without becoming a second subject — anything in a picture like this that is not face or clothing would be a distraction.
That the frames are contrasty but not blocked up is deliberate. Press and cover images get passed on and worked on further, and what is no longer in the shadows no grade will bring back.
- Artist
- Animus
