Portrait Photography

Our very first assignment of the year was portrait photography. I'll admit, I was slightly intimidated by this first assignment, since portrait photography isn't my strong suit. However, despite my fear for this assignment, I was also excited to get started. I've never formally shot portrait photographs before, so this was my very first time. To get started, I did some quick research on the world famous photographer Vivian Maier, whose work was just discovered quite recently. Using her as my inspiration, I confidently went out to KLCC to shoot my portraits. 

1. "The Diva"

I was wandering around the fountain at KLCC looking for people to shoot, when I saw this woman walking casually in 3-inch heels. She was texting someone on her phone, falling behind her small group of friends (you can see a person with a purse in the background. This was one of her friends waiting for me to finish with my photo). As soon as I saw her I immediately knew that she would be a great subject for my photo. I asked her if I could take her picture, and she said yes in an embarrassed way. She made no adjustments to her appearance, but posed with her body not totally facing the camera. If you can tell from her facial expression in this photo, she was kind of embarrassed to have her picture taken, as most would be. I named this photo "The Diva" because of her glamorous appearance. I think the sunglasses on her head are an excellent addition to this photo, because they are reflecting the clouds and a portion of the KL Petronas Towers. I didn't notice this at the time that I was taking my picture, but if I did, I could have positioned myself so that the towers were in full view in the sunglasses. I also liked how I captured the texture of her hair - it is in clear view nearing the bottom. 

2. "2 Generations"

As soon as you exit the KLCC mall and enter the park, you are greeted by a huge crowd (mostly of families and friends on a Sunday afternoon) watching the fountains or playing games of tag. I went up to one of the families and asked if I could take this baby's picture. The baby was originally positioned so that his head was resting on the mother's shoulder from her behind, and I thought if I shot the two in that position it would create a nice effect. However the mother misunderstood me, and turned around towards the camera with her baby. I didn't mind, though. I still took the picture. We had small conversation, and I learned that the baby was nearing his 4th month. The baby in this photo looks so confused with what's going on, as if the world's addition to his new life was confusing and overwhelming. I was also surprised that the baby looked directly at the lens, because in my mind, babies are like little pets who are camera-shy and active. I thought that the baby would just keep moving around and it would be difficult for me to get a good shot. However this image turned out nicely with the mother and child both looking right at the lens. 

3. "Killing Time"

If anyone looks at this photo, no one would know why it was called "Killing Time". However if they read this short paragraph, they would know why. This is like a little strategy that most people use; if you confuse them with something at first, they will be more drawn to the image and have a stronger desire to know why exactly they got confused, and what your intent is. 

I named this photo "Killing Time" because when I was walking around the island of the fountain, I found this lady sitting on a towel on the grass, reading her book, waiting for someone. Obviously she was killing time while waiting for her mother or her boyfriend to return from somewhere. My dad and I went up to her and asked if I could take her picture. She, just like the others I photographed, were very nervous to be photographed. She looked up from her book, and after we asked her she had a very nervous face (even though it didn't really show in this photo). 

4. "Casual Laughter"

This photo was taken near the end of my shoot. I was starting to get desperate for photos because I still had 10 more pictures I needed to shoot. That was when I saw my mom casually gazing out towards the fountain. I tried to take a sneak attack photo, but unfortunately she caught me. She wouldn't let me take a picture of her because "I don't have any make up on!!" I put the camera down and started to think it was hopeless to even try to get her picture. Then she looked towards my dad, who was making crazy faces at us (typical behavior from my dad) and started laughing. That was my chance, and I quickly took a sneak attack picture while she was laughing. I must say, it did turn out pretty nice. This was taken a few days before she and my dad were diagnosed with dengue fever. She and my dad were feeling pretty bad, lazing around at home in pain. I originally wasn't going to print this to put on my blog, but decided to print it for my mom and dad as a little "get well soon" gift. After I printed it I realized that this was in fact a pretty nice image, and decided to put it on my blog.


5. "Clashing Cultures"

I think this image is interesting. At first sight, you'd look at this woman's scarf and think about how religious and cultural it is. It has beautiful Islamic patterns around the ends of the scarf. But then, you look at what she's wearing underneath. It's a bright, busy checkered pattern, with some Louis Vuitton logos. That's why I named this picture "Clashing Cultures", as her traditional Islamic scarf clashes with her modern-day branded fashion top. It doesn't look bad, I think it looks interesting and represents how our modern day world functions, especially with religion.

6. "Public Emotions"

I named this photo "Public Emotions" just be looking at her scarf. It has the words "happy," "welcome," "happy life," "happy for days," and several other nice phrases. I think this shows both the importance of education to her and the world, and the importance of happiness in life. I think there's some symbolism to this photo. The words on the scarf surround her and most of the photo, representing the happiness and education in her world.


7. "Uncomfortable"

Towards the end of the shoot, this man spotted me taking photos of other people and told me to get a picture with him, his daughter and his granddaughter. I took a group shot of all of them, but also took one of him alone. I wanted him alone because old people in photos give the viewer a sense of wisdom and success, as they had so many years to live life to its fullest. Older people of a generation (or tribe) are usually deemed more wise than the younger ones. I find old people in photos interesting because of this reason. The man also looks nervous to have his picture taken alone, whereas he was quite excited for me to take a picture of his whole family. That is why I've named this photo "Uncomfortable".

Overall, I think this was a pretty successful shoot. Being my first time shooting portraits, I think I did a pretty good job of it. One thing I should do more is starting taking multiple photos of a subject, to ensure that at least one of them is successful. For example, there was one photo of a Uyghur man with an amazing story (he participated in the Uyghur-Chinese protests), but it wasn't that great a portrait. I was originally going to print it for this blog, but didn't think it had the potential. Had I shot an extra photo of him, I might have been able to include that image in this blog.


Shooting portrait photography was definitely a new, but wonderful experience for me. I quite enjoyed walking around the KLCC park photographing anyone who looked interesting. I think my shoot alone shows the diversity of cultures that you can find in KLCC.