Eye

One of our assignments for my new, more advanced, photography class (HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS) is to look at lots of pictures of people to figure out what I like. I used flickriver to explore some of the groups on flickr that specialize in people pictures. I found the People Portraits group and the Portrait Classics group pools most useful for my purpose.

The first thing I discovered is that I like photos of children with black eyes. That didn't seem to be a terribly useful observation since there aren't that many black-eyed children in my life at the moment, but that may be something I can change.

In the meantime, I looked at another thousand or so photos and decided that a more general observation is that I like people photos that emphasize eyes. That tends to mean that I like head and shoulder shots or even closer (but not as close as the photo below-- I was playing with my macro lens). In general, I prefer photos where the head is turned rather than straight on poses. I seem to have a preference for subjects looking into the camera, but I also liked some where the gaze was to the side.

So, that's my eye. What color is it? My driver's license says green, but I have a chance to change it this year and I'm wondering if I should say hazel.