Who is that Person? An Exercise in Close Observation and Speculative Interpretation

The entire assignment, and the 23 untitled portraits that you will choose from, are on blackboard, or e-learning as I am wont to call it. Tomorrow we will spend our time together with the illustrious and charming Jayme Jacobson. With J. Jacobson’s able instruction, you will each start your own UH280 blogs. You will send me your URL (by Jan 14 at 8 pm), I will link you to the class blog, and into the semester we will leap. Once again, I am hoping that this internet conversation will spawn and inspire fruitful classroom conversation.
Post your own response to your chosen portrait Jan 15 by 8 pm. Remember to cite the number designation for the image you write about. Read five of your classmates' responses to this exercise and come prepared for us to have a discussion on Jan 16. Write down the name of the people whose blogs you read. Come prepared to comment, question, and discuss your and others' interpretations of the group of untitled portraits.

In brief, for any outside (of the class) readers, here is the nub of our exercise:
Select one portrait. Speculate and write about the subject: who is that person, or in the case of the portraits with more than one figure, who are these people? Scrutinize and study the images carefully, jotting down (by hand) any ideas to our question: who is this person? Begin by brainstorming ideas, without censoring your notions. Carefully observe the visual cues, the visual information that the artist has decided to include in his or her image. After or as you observe, use your imagination! I am purposely not providing information about the artist or title. Instead, I am asking you study the image and creatively speculate on what the image tells you. What is this person’s personality? How do you read their character? What kind of life does the subject lead? If I provided titles and artist names, many of you would have the natural tendency to search the internet for information. With this first assignment, I would like to focus on imaginative speculation based on careful observation.