The Art of the Portrait

[Mark Sawyer]

You're using the term to mean exactly what I wasn't.

But I was using it to mean exactly what I was!

Most people are contriving to look this way or that, and that contrivance, and the desire to contrive how they look, is as much a part of their character as "repose"...

Rick "who doesn't understand the concept of 'honesty' in portraits" Denney

Which leaves me wondering whether "get it over with" drivers' license portraits are the most honest? Certainly the most utilitarian...

Seriously, perhaps it's that as photographers, we are too concerned with the work being good to get it right. Rick said it well up above, but the contrivance is as often ours as theirs, and I plead "guilty as sin".

Still, a lovely portrait is a lovely portrait regardless, and perhaps we viewers shouldn't always be so nosy as to demand to peer into someone else's soul for the sake of our inner artistic voyeur...

[archer]

We seem to be imposing too much responsibility on the sitter for the "truth", when it is in fact the photographer who has the overwhelming power to say what that "truth" is. Arnold Newman, in his use of lighting and pose in the chosen environment, imposed his "truth" on the sitter in the famous portrait of Alfred Krupp as did Karsh in the English lion portrait of Churchill. If either of these subjects were anonymous, would our response to these portraits be the same? I believe it would but perhaps for different reasons. It is the portraitists responsibility to give the sitter a chance to live or not in their image and when the time comes, to know the difference. I guess we are limited by language, to call every likeness of a subject, a portrait, especially if done under controlled circumstances so the debate will rage on but like Justice White, I can't describe it but I know it when I see it.
Denise libby

[Mark Sawyer]

The best debates always rage on...

[Ben Syverson]

All else being equal, the difference between a headshot and a portrait is a smile.

[eschatologized]

like Justice White, I can't describe it but I know it when I see it.

Potter Stewart.

[William McEwen]

Durn! I come across this terrific topic just as I'm leaving for dinner... MORE later!

: - )

[archer]

Dear eschatologized;
Thanks for the correction.
Denise Libby

[archer]

Here is an example of the portrait as allegory. Started as a still life of a door, a mirror and a small table with metronome, both given to me by my recently deceased step father. I was preparing to make the exposure, when my mother unexpectedly entered the room. I told her I was making a long exposure and asked her to sit on a window seat and to be very still during the exposure. She was not aware that she would be in the photograph. The grief shown in her face evoked the title of the photograph, "Widowed" and the slight out of DOF softness of focus seems to enforce the sense of loss and separation. Years before, in Italy, I had used a mirror for the same reason, in a photograph of a man in his casket with his wife at her prayers reflected in that mirror. That image had been planned, this image was pure serendipity.
Denise Libby

[archer]

Here is an example of the portrait as allegory. Started as a still life of a door, a mirror and a small table with metronome, both given to me by my recently deceased step father. I was preparing to make the exposure, when my mother unexpectedly entered the room. I told her I was making a long exposure and asked her to sit on a window seat and to be very still during the exposure. She was not aware that she would be in the photograph. The grief shown in her face evoked the title of the photograph, "Widowed" and the slight out of DOF softness of focus seems to enforce the sense of loss and separation. Years before, in Italy, I had used a mirror for the same reason, in a photograph of a man in his casket with his wife at her prayers reflected in that mirror. That image had been planned, this image was pure serendipity.
Denise Libby

[archer]

Please excuse the double post.
Archer