Thomas Ruff was born in 1958, he is a German photographer who studied under Bernd Becher. He took highly detailed, immaculate photographs of normal people in society. He didn't want to give a context to these photographs, as he wanted to show that it is impossible to photograph a subjects inner life.
This photograph shows a woman, probably in her early twenties staring deadpan at the camera, she has her hair away from her face so you can see all her facial details, this reminds me of a passport photograph because of how serious it is, in addition, the background is completely plain which also creates this effect.
This photo also shows a similar effect, as do all of his photographs, he tends to take photographs of very average people in a deadpan expression, he does this so that he can show the models in a position where they aren't showing an emotion because he thinks that making subjects show emotions tricks the audience into thinking someone is feeling one way when they aren't. We don't actually know how they are feeling.
I like this photograph because it looks a bit colder than his others, in this the lighting seems quite cold, whilst in the two photographs above this one, they look very warm, with yellowy tones. Furthermore, the models are wearing warmer colours like red and orange, whereas in this image, he is wearing quite bland grey type colours. This photograph was definitely taken in a studio because the background is so plain and there is very controlled lighting, the photographer has used lighting on both the model and the backdrop so that there is no shadow on the background.
This photograph is taken in the exact same style as Ruff's other photographs, however, the lighting is quite a bit different, for example, in this photograph, the lighting is quite contrasted, there are lots of dark areas as well as very light areas. Whereas in the photograph above this one, there isn't much of this at all, all of the face is lit so that it is all in high detail. This type of lighting makes the model seem angry, although the photographer chose to do this style of portraiture because it shows no emotion, however the lighting in this image does portray a negative emotion.
This photograph is much more immature and you can tell that Ruff was experimenting with the technique, the background isn't lit correctly as there is a slight shadow on it.
Reference:
John-Paul Stonard, (2010) [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/thomas-ruff-2602/text-artist-biography]
Date accessed: 1/12/2016
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