Personality portrait feature examples

Below are two examples of personality portrait features written by students. Check out these two examples before writing one of your own.

Example No. 1

The only thing Codi Mills wanted as her going away present was a bookshelf.

That was the only gift Mills asked her father for as she left for San Jose State University to follow her passion in photography.

When Mills got to SJSU, she took all of the neat little decorations and items off her dorm room shelves to make room for all the books she purchased from the Martin Luther King Jr. Library patio sale on the San Jose State University campus.

“It was the greatest Tetris game of my life,” Mills said, about fitting all the books she purchased in one bag.

Mills loves to read anything, and attributes books to the person she is now and to the career path she has chosen in photography claiming that her personality was shaped by books from a young age.

“Books made me a thoughtful person,” said Mills. “I got that sense of freedom and imagination from books.”

According to Art Mills, Codi’s father, Codi picked up reading on her own with no influence from her parents.

“Some people enjoy watching TV, but for her it was reading,” said Art Mills. “She at one point mentioned that she was going to read the dictionary.”

Codi’s family runs a self-employed business known as Mills’ Plumbing and they didn’t have much time for vacations when she was young.

“We would take Codi on things called mini-vacations where we would drive back roads,” said Art Mills.

Codi also remembers that during those mini-vacations she would climb an old oak tree in her backyard and pretend she was a heroine.

But, probably more important to Codi were her books and how they brought her so many viewpoints and interpretations on life. “It’s the ability to see life through a different lens,” said Mills.

This is where Codi ties reading into photography, the connection between telling people’s stories and yet leave them up to interpretation.
“Interestingly enough, I don’t want to be in written journalism,” said Mills. “Writing alienates sections of the world, and I would hate a universal language.”

Codi explained that this is where the value of photography lies, in the universal language of visuals.

“In photography you can freeze the truth as it is,” said Mills.

According to Codi’s boyfriend, Quenton Fletcher, photography is a subject that naturally comes to Codi. “It fits her very much because she’s an outgoing person who loves to explore new places and this is definitely something that will allow her to adventure until her heart’s content.”

Codi’s father also believes in her choice of study. “She could do anything, she is an excellent student, but I think she can change the world.”

Codi’s goal is to change the world and educate people about different cultures and show them places that they couldn’t normally see for themselves.

“If I can do one small part and educate one person, that’s enough.”

The girl who reads and imagines herself in faraway lands plans to bring those lands to people through the pictures she takes.

 Example No. 2 

Seeing him wearing a Giants baseball cap and T-shirt, it is easy to assume Nick Esposito’s greatest passion is baseball and it is easy to be wrong.

This revelation is even more of a shock considering Esposito’s father is a 27-year veteran of coaching high school baseball and both of his brothers play baseball.

Even with all of this baseball influence, for 21-year-old Esposito, classic rock is where his interest really lies.

For Esposito, baseball never held his interest because he felt it was boring.

“I played until the fourth grade,” said Esposito. “I was the one in the left field picking the grass.”

Even though Esposito is not consumed by it, baseball draws the Esposito family together.

When Esposito and his brothers, Nate and Vinny, were young, they used to go to Granite Bay High School to play with the baseball team their father, Pat Esposito, coached.

“We all support the Giants and Yankees, and the whole family (aunts, uncles and grandparents) have fun with it,” said Esposito’s mother, Julie Esposito.

Although Esposito grew up with an extensive baseball influence from his father, Pat Esposito gave more to his son than just baseball by introducing him to classic rock.

“When I was a kid, my dad played that music for us all of the time,” Esposito said.

His father’s influence on his choice in music shows up in Esposito’s favorite band, Led Zeppelin, who were what his father would play, above the protests of his mother who wanted more positive music around the kids.

“At home when they were little, we had Christian Rock most of the time,” said Julie Esposito.

This restriction never stopped Esposito from developing a much deeper appreciation in junior high school for classic rock.

He took piano and guitar lessons and went on to give a few performances in high school of classic rock.

“He’s like a jukebox for Classic Rock, and it’s awesome to see how excited he gets when a good song comes on the radio,” said Mallory McCarron, Esposito’s girlfriend of nearly two years.

In Esposito’s opinion the most important thing about the music is not the lyrics but instead is the sound of the song.

He appreciates the ingenuity of classic rock bands as they pushed back against the happy musical styles of the 1950s while dealing with Vietnam.

“The sound is in your face,” Esposito said. “You can look at a society through the music.”

Even in other genres of music like Heavy Metal and Punk, Esposito is able to set aside the intense vocals and focus on the music that is backbone of the songs.

When McCarron decided to broaden his musical horizons into Country, she made sure to take into account Esposito’s love of sound.

“I knew he loved big guitar ‘electric’ solos, so I showed him artists such as Jason Aldean and Brad Paisley,” McCarron said. “They really know how to rock a good electric guitar solo.”

Esposito’s appreciation for classic rock is deeper than just its aesthetics because he believes that it served as a gateway for the styles of music that are around today.

The classic rock style and sound eventually allowed genres like Rap, Heavy Metal and Punk to spring up, while the more acoustic music of the 1960s lead into the Easy Listening genre.

“It’s like comparing dinosaur bones to modern day birds,” Esposito said. “Classic rock was the precursor for everything that we have now.”

Although Esposito admits that he enjoys all genres of music, he has a problem with what he feels is the creation of music not for the music’s sake but for the fame of the artist.

“Mainstream music has forgotten its purpose. We’re missing the point.”

If Nick Esposito walks by dressed in his Giants fan gear with headphones in his ears, don’t be surprised if classic rock is playing instead of the latest baseball game because for him, the music is the most important part.