Portrait Research -Irving Penn

Penn was born on June 16, 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey, to Harry Penn and Sonia Greenberg. Penn's younger brother, Arthur Penn was born in 1922 and would go on to become a film director and producer.
Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) from 1934 to 1938, where he studied drawing, painting, graphics, and industrial arts under Alexey Brodovitch. While still a student, Penn worked under Brodovitch at Harper's Bazaar which published several of Penn's drawings.
Penn worked for two years as a freelance designer and making his first amateur photographs before taking Brodovitch's position as the art director at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1940. Penn remained at Saks Fifth Avenue for a year before leaving to spend a year painting and taking photographs in Mexico and across the US.
When Penn returned to New York, Alexander Liberman offered him a position as an associate in the Vogue magazine Art Department. Penn worked on layout for the magazine before Liberman asked him to try photography.
Penn's first photographic cover for Vogue magazine appeared in October 1943. Penn continued to work at the magazine throughout his career, photographing covers, portraits, still lifes, fashion, and photographic essays.
In the 1950s, Penn founded his own studio in New York and began making advertising photographs. Over the years, Penn's list of clients grew to include General Foods, De Beers, Issey Miyake, and Clinique.
Penn met fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives at a photo shoot in 1947. In 1950, the two married at Chelsea Register Office, and two years later Lisa gave birth to their son, Tom Penn, who would go on to become a metal designer Lisa Fonssagrives died in 1992.
Penn died aged 92 on October 7, 2009 at his home in Manhattan.

 I love the way he has used the shadows and the light in this portrait. It makes the sitter look frightening and menicing  instead of the usual type of protrait. The way he has done this makes it intresting to look at.

This is a self portrait of Irving Penn, I love the cracked mirror affect as it leaves you woundering if he is trying to tell you more about himself which to me again makes the picture very intresting.

Now ive put this picture on here as it has the rules ofa portrait yet you can not see the persons face so im not sure it could be called a portrait. But i think it would be a very good twist on a portrait which i would like to try in the future.