Exceptional portraits

I'm exploring the kind of portraits that I like.

Below is a photo I like by Irving Penn - not sure it counts as a portrait - better check the definition of 'portrait' - here's Wikipedia's:

A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.

By this definition Penn's photo counts in my opinion because the emphasis is on the child's face and it's composed.

Here's another one I really like:

Not sure why I like it but the red headscarf and the hands are important factors. It looks posed but the girl seems very relaxed, fairly natural.

I love portraits that consist of a bit more than just someone's head and shoulders, for example, the photo below of John Lennon by Jane Bown on the Guardian site Paul emailed us about. It doesn't look posed, though might have been.

If it wasn't posed, perhaps it wouldn't count as a portrait!

I took a photo recently of a man reading a newspaper - I'd asked his permission to take it so in a way it was posed - but I can't say he looks very comfortable! I'll post it on the next blog because I'm darned if I can work out how to move uploaded photos to the bottom of the blog.