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Discover Challenge

Portraits

Paint a picture with words, capture someone on film, sketch a face in the crowd — this week, share a portrait.

Behind-the-scenes snapshot of actor Bryan Cranston. Photo by Brad Trent at Damn Ugly Photography.

The images in this roundup of portrait photographers that Cheri published on Discover are arresting — though the compositions are fairly simple, the subjects’ eyes and expressions draw you in. These aren’t just pictures of faces, they’re personalities. Emotions. Stories.

From Andrew Boyle's "New Work for Mill Makeup," on his site, Just Another Photo Blog.

From Andrew Boyle’s “New Work for Mill Makeup,” on his site, Just Another Photo Blog.

This week, we want you to publish a portrait.

Does this mean you have to publish a photo? Not at all! A portrait is “an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.” Sure, this frequently means a photo or painting, but you can also represent faces and personality with…

… words, of course. Write a characterization, and use your words to paint us a picture.

… pen and ink — sketch a portrait!

… more words. Use the focus and discipline of poetry to capture a personality in verse.

… a collage. Clip images and text from magazines, arrange them into a portrait, then snap a photo and upload it.

Choose anyone as your subject: a loved one, your favorite celebrity, a fictional character, your dog, yourself, the guy with the crooked smile who’s always on your bus in the mornings. Let us see their face — either with your images, or in our minds’ eyes — with all the detail and quirk that makes them who they are.

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  19. Dear WP editors, is there a reason why my comment has been deleted? I only posted a link to my Discover challenge post because the pingback doesn’t work (the link is fine, I checked…).

    Thanks!

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  30. I have a question about the prompts. Are you okay with older posts that fit the subject as long as they aren’t re-posted anywhere else? Often the recommendation will reflect to an earlier entry of mine, one that’s still relevant of course, but not new. If this is taboo, I’ll gladly remove the ping-back link. Don’t want to break the rules if this is indeed a rule. Thanks for your time!

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