What a stunning man, he is, I say!

In our design class, we created a Character Portrait based off of our main character in our flash fiction. The Character Portrait is an extremely professional photo with lots of editing down in Adobe Photoshop. To take these photos, the teachers at Freestyle Academy loving put up photo booths, where we could bring our model to take several pictures of them. Of course, it is hard to get a perfectly accurate model, as a lot of the main characters in our stories are quite particular and sometimes very weird, so the person in the portrait is often just a representation of the actual character. For the portrait, we also had to use several props to make it seem like the portrait is a part of a specific scene from the story. The person in the portrait has to also be in action, so that he/she is doing something.

In my Character Portrait, I used my own father to represent a very old man, who is the main character in my flash fiction. The action he is in is that he is standing up from his chair, just after reading a book. The props used are a wooden table with a large book and reading lamp rested on it, a big chair, and a wooden cane he uses to walk. The pose he is in is one of being very tired and not wanting to get up from the chair. Hopefully, my father wasn't too offended that I wanted him to be an old man.

Below is my Artist Statement:

The character in my self-portrait is called Eugene, even though his name isn’t really important. In the story, he is an old man who lives all alone in an extremely large house very far from civilization. He walks with a cane everywhere he goes, and he always has a large hunch-back. His hair is quite obviously grey, along with his unkempt beard. He wears a red, plaid, button-down shirt with jeans combined with a belt. He rarely smiles, and always has a look of thinking on his face, as if he is constantly thinking about his mysterious past.

The shot of the character is very early in the story, where he is sitting in his bedroom, reading a very large book. Outside, it is pouring rain, so he is quite obviously surprised when he hears the doorbell ring. He rests the book down on the table next to him, and he reaches for his cane. The shot of the picture is right when he gets up from his chair to see who it is at the door. He grabs his cane, hoists himself up into standing position, and begins to walk towards his front door.