In reply to my last post on the full length portrait, the wonderful Johnny McMillan (https://www.johnnymcmillan.com) brought to my attention the origin of the “straight-up” photographic portrait style. Steve Johnson was originally commissioned to photograph London’s Punks by Terry Jones, for what eventuated into a book (“Not Another Punk Book”) and became a foundation of the original hand-stapled fanzine format of i-D, which he founded later in 1980. 

http://www.oocities.org/le_beat_route/id1.html

As a response to the portraits of August Sander and Irving Penn’s Small Trades the Punks were photographed against a plain white wall on King’s Road. This stylistic motif has since permeated documentary photography, such as in Richard Avedon’s famous In the American West, which he begun 2 years later in 1979. 

Irving Penn, “Small Trades”

Richard Avedon “In the American West”

Avedon’s work inspired this small series of images I took back in first year of university, shot in Perth CBD in front of a particularly glittery wall.