Portrait Photographer Ken Dundas Shares His Powerful Women Series

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Today we're featuring renown Scottish-born, Seattle-based portrait photographer Ken Dundas and his Powerful Women Series. This series of images feature women of varied ages from a multitude of backgrounds and countries. As a portrait photographer, Dundas has been photographing celebrities and real people for over 20 years. His unique position as a photographer enables him to stay separate as an observer, and at the same time, deeply connect with his subjects. Here are a few things he's learned over the years in his own words:

On Photographing Women

In my experience, while few women I’ve worked with, or people for that matter, want to appear gritty, they do want to appear confident, grounded and have a sense of beauty reflected. I work to draw out an emotional connection and capture that in my portraits. 

On What Makes a Successful Portrait 

I love working with women from all walks of life. The amazingly talented British actress, Dame Emma Thompson, was one of my favorites. She was strong, confident and knew exactly what she was going to do in the picture. Her natural charm and intelligence shows through. The shoot was quick and professional, while still being engaging.

Katie Leung from the Harry Potter films was another favorite. This shoot was quite different because I was able to invest more time. It was about building trust. When time allows, I like to have a conversation with my subjects, and as Katie and I talked, I tried to capture her emotions. My hope is that when people see this portrait, they get a sense of Katie’s vulnerability while lost in thought.

Katarina Bartholomew is my wife’s niece. Hers is one image from a portrait series I took of the whole family (including the dog) just before the children were getting on the school bus. We can see Katarina’s strong sense of confidence shine through. I love her self-assurance, the viewer can see that she’s very much wrapped up in her own sense of style.

To see more amazing portraits from Ken Dundas, visit www.sallyreps.com or www.kkdundas.com.