portraits

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Photography

Retired P.E. Teacher Wears Same Outfit for 40 Years of Yearbook Portraits

Retired gym teacher Dale Irby posed for his first yearbook photo back in 1973 at Prestonwood Elementary school. The next year, completely by accident, Irby wore the exact same outfit. At first he was horrified to discover the faux pas, but then his wife made a dare: do it again the next year. Before you knew it a 40-year tradition was born; from 1973 to 2012 the teacher, now 63, wore an identical sweater vest and collared shirt for every single yearbook portrait. You can see a slideshow of the photos over at the Dallas Morning News. (via peta pixel)

Art

Swirling, Psychedelic Self-Portraits by Nikos Gyftakis

Greek artist Nikos Gyftakis created this wonderful series of swirling self-portraits between 2004-2005. The works are made with oil pastels on canvas and are actually quite large, with a few of the pieces taller than 5′ (1.5m). You can see many more from this series and more of his recent work in his work gallery.

Art History Photography

Face Painting at the Maha Shivaratri Festival

Photographer Rakesh JV captured this phenomenal portrait of a girl having her face painted prior to the Maha Shivaratri festival in India, an annual Hindu celebration in reverence of Lord Shiva. During the festival people offer sacrifices through various means, kids are dressed up as gods, and older individuals are known to inflict pain on themselves through a variety of self torture. Rakesh has traveled all around the country the last few years and has captured a wealth of incredible portraits and scenes that are well worth a look.

Art Documentary Photography

Back to the Future: A Documentary Short on Irina Werning’s Viral Photography Project

Back to the Future is a documentary short about Argentinean photographer Irina Werning’s incredible photography project where she recreates cherished old photographs of people. I always assumed that Werning must be obsessed with details to take photos that so closely resembled images made decades earlier, but I didn’t expect the amount of labor that goes into making a single shot. From arranging the right wardrobe, to creating backdrops and perfectly mimicked bad lighting, let alone traveling to meet each of her subjects, each photograph is really a significant undertaking. Filmed by Jamie Jassett.

Art Science

Stranger Visions: DNA Collected from Found Objects Used to Create 3D Portraits

You’re walking down a street in Brooklyn, gnawing on a piece of gum that’s past the point of flavorful.. In a hurry, you spit it on the ground without a second thought and continue about your day. Hours later, a mysterious woman arrives, surreptitiously collecting the sticky gum from the sidewalk and dropping it into a clear plastic bag which she then carefully labels. Flash forward a month later: you’re walking through an art gallery, and there, mounted on the wall, is a familiar face staring back at you. Astonishingly (or terrifyingly), it’s a 3D print of your face generated from the DNA you left behind on that random piece of gum that now appears in a petri dish just below the portrait. A few years ago this would have seemed like science fiction, the stuff of films like Gattaca, but to information artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg, it’s how she makes her artwork here in 2013.

They say inspiration can strike anywhere. For Dewey-Hagborg, it happened in a therapy session. While staring at a framed print on the wall, she fixated on a tiny crack in the glass into which a small hair had become lodged. As her mind wandered, she imagined who this seemingly insignificant hair belonged to, and, more specifically, what they might look like. After that day, she became keenly aware of the genetic trail left by every person in their daily life, and began to question what physical characteristics could be identified through the DNA left behind on a piece of gum or cigarette butt.

Sample Location 6. January 6, 2013 at 12:25pm; Wilson ave. and Stanhope St. Brooklyn, NY; MtDNA Haplogroup: D1 (Native American, South American); SRY Gene: present; Gender: Male; HERC2 Gene: AA; Eye Color: Brown

Stranger Visions is the result of her fascinating, if slightly disconcerting, line of questioning and experimentation: 3D printed portraits based on DNA samples taken from objects found on the streets of Brooklyn. Dewey-Hagborg worked with a DIY biology lab called Genspace, where she met a number of biologists who taught her everything she now knows about molecular biology and DNA. Via an interview with the artist:

So I extract the DNA in the lab and then I amplify certain regions of it using a technique called PCR – Polymerase Chain Reaction. This allows me to study certain regions of the genome that tend to vary person to person, what are called SNPs or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms.

I send the results of my PCR reactions off to a lab for sequencing and what I get back are basically text files filled with sequences of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs, the nucleotides that compose DNA. I align these using a bioinformatics program and determine what allele is present for a particular SNP on each sample.

Then I feed this information into a custom computer program I wrote which takes all these values which code for physical genetic traits and parameterizes a 3d model of a face to represent them. For example gender, ancestry, eye color, hair color, freckles, lighter or darker skin, and certain facial features like nose width and distance between eyes are some of the features I am in the process of studying.

I add some finishing touches to the model in 3d software and then export it for printing on a 3d printer. I use a Zcorp printer which prints in full color using a powder type material, kind of like sand and glue.

The resulting portraits are bizarre approximations of anonymous people who unknowingly left their genetic material on a random city street. So how accurate are the faces created from this genetic experiment? The artist likes to say they have a “family resemblance” and no, unlike the scenario depicted above, a person has never recognized themselves in any of her exhibitions. Yet. There are some things such as age which are virtually impossible to determine from DNA alone, so Dewey-Hagborg casts each portrait as if the person were around 25 years old.

Sample Location 2. January 6, 2013 qt 12:15pm; 1381 Myrtle ave. Brooklyn, NY; MtDNA Haplogroup: H2a2a1 (Eastern European); SRY Gene: present; Gender: Male; HERC2 Gene: AA; Eye Color: Brown

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg with a genetically derived self-portrait.

Dewey-Hagborg will be giving a talk with a pop-up exhibit at Genspace on June 13th, and QF Gallery on Long Island will host a body of her work from June 29th through July 13th. You can follow the artist via her website and also her blog. All imagery courtesy the artist. (via smithsonian)

Photography

Photographer Takes a Boy with Muscular Dystrophy on an Imaginary Adventure

Slovenia-based photographer Matej Peljhan recently teamed up with a 12-year-named Luka who suffers from muscular dystrophy, to create a wildly imaginative series of photos depicting the boy doing things he is simply unable to do because of his degenerative condition. While he can still use his fingers to drive a wheelchair and to draw, things like skateboarding and swimming are simply not possible.

After having a conversation with Luka about his understandably normal desire to play sports or go swimming, Peljan was struck with the idea to create a non-digitally manipulated series of photographs showing the boy conquering a number of imaginary physical feats. The photographer used sheets and other props as a backdrop and shot Luca from above to capture each image, showing clearly the boy’s strength and shared sense of humor. See more photos from the series on the photographer’s website. All images courtesy the artist. (via peta pixel)