In the seminar “The Art and Business of Portraiture,” held during PhotoPlus Expo, portrait photographers Lydia Panas, Chris Buck, and Charlotte Dumas showed their work, primarily focusing on their fine art images, and described how they interact with their subjects to make compelling portraits. Gallerist Michael Foley of the Foley Gallery in New York moderated the discussion.

Panas, a fine artist whose portraits reveal much about character and relationships, showed work from her Mark of Abel and Falling from Grace projects. She explained that she doesn’t direct her subjects; in fact, she talks very little, and works without assistants when she’s shooting fine-art portraits. “I recognize what is happening between myself and the model, and I don’t force anything,” she said. “It’s amazing what you can see just by staring at someone.” (more…)

If you’ve read PDN‘s story on Marco Grob’s techniques for lighting and shooting portraits fast (see “How I Got That Shot: The 3-Minute Portrait” in our December issue) you may be curious to see Grob in action. This video shows Grob using his portable lighting set up and handheld Hassie to photograph survivors of landmines in Afghanistan.

Grob traveled to Afghanistan in February to document the work of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and the Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan (MACCA). More than one million people in Afghanistan have been injured or affected by landmines and other unexploded ordinances left from decades of conflict. Grob documented the work MACCA and UNMAS are doing to clear the Afghan countryside of landmines and to educate the public about the risks these devices pose. Grob talked about his portraits with the UN News Center.