For all of her influence on popular culture, and the remarkable performances she left behind, perhaps Farrah Fawcett's greatest legacy was her raw, intimate, honest portrait of a woman fighting for her life - against cancer.
I know Juffure was a British trading post and my portrait of the village bears no resemblance to the way it was. But the portrait I gave was true of nearly all the other villages in Gambia. I, we, need a place called Eden. My people need Pilgrim's Rock.
To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
A journalist is supposed to present an unbiased portrait of an event, a view devoid of intimate emotions. This is impossible, of course. The framing of an image, by its very composition, represents a choice. The photographer chooses what to show and what to exclude.
I refer to what I do as 'conceptual portraits,' meaning that I come up with an idea or concept that I would like to explore, and then I find people that fit that idea.
In 'Where the Air is Clear', Carlos Fuentes composed a polyphonic portrait of Mexico City amid the growth and modernization brought on by the economic boom of the 1950s. The novel can be read as a jazz interpretation - free and in a Mexican key - of John Dos Passos' 'Manhattan Transfer'.
The photograph of the Queen sitting stiffly across the table from Glasgow resident Susan McCarron is so natural and expressive that it looks utterly fake. It looks like an artist's portrait, complete with symbolism, humour and poignancy. No wonder the palace and the press have interpreted it in such different ways.
While I began writing 'Rules of Civility' in 2006, the genesis of the book dates back to the early 1990s, when I happened upon a copy of 'Many Are Called,' the collection of portraits that Walker Evans took on the New York City subways in the late 1930s with a hidden camera.
I want my portraits to create a space where blackness can breathe.
My mother was willing to support art as a summer program for me. She never supported it as a career decision until I won the National Gallery Portrait Competition.
