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Portrait & Paradox

Kevin Bjorke

New member
I love portraits and have long found the idea of them -- the fundamental nature and purpose of portraiture -- to be something of a paradox. To simply recreate a likeness is seemingly trivial, though we all have had the experience of making (and appearing in) "better" or "worse" likenesses. Does the portrait require the face? The body? How recognizably unique must it be? Can it be?

Ralph Gibson once said that there are photos that show a specific person and photos that show Everyman, and that the most interesting photos are those where the two categories overlap. I love this statement in part because it seems like clear instruction and yet who the heck knows what it means when you're actually in the process of making pictures.

The inner state of the subject is especially problematic... do the best portraits reveal it, or only the appearance of such a revelation, which may be completely illusory? If a photo cannot truly tell a story, but rather just (!) a poem, how much can we take from it at (ahem) face value? I do believe that no image of merit can exist without a sense of verbs to match its directly-visibile nouns.

Someone told me that all photos are about a relationship. Between the viewer, the photographer, and subject, it seems to me like there are at least three relationships in play.


I ask these questions not expecting ready answers, but simpy because they are questions I ask regularly, and try to explore with each click. It would be good to hear others' thoughts.
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
too..... d...e...e...p.... :)

You fried my mind ;-)

I think that if I can capture a glimpse of someones personality, and have them look great without other's thinking they look "different" to how they really are... I would be happy.

I am not sure how much relationship comes in, I mean sometimes the only thing you know about the subject is their name. If you can try and assess their personality a little, and make them comfortable - you are sure to get better shots. So the relational part is importnat to a degree.

they are my random thoughts
 

Marian Howell

New member
yaaaahhh...deeeeep...but a good subject to explore!
i like the ralph gibson quote. and i would say that a portrait doesn't have to tell a story, but could also be a tone poem. a great portrait is art, is it not? all of your thoughts above are also ruminations on the nature of art itself, it seems to me. of course, then we get into the nature of art and the truth of art :)))))) and the truth of photography! and don't all of us insert a bit of ourselves when pressing the shutter button? if a client came to you and me with the same portrait request, we would both execute the assignment differently, and yet both of us could successfully fufill the request to the client's satisfaction, i'm sure.
 

Michael Poster

New member
Kevin,

Robert Adams writes about Paul Strand in his book "Why People Photograph"; particularly about his "…concern to show specifics and generalities together…" (sound familiar?) He zeros in on a portrait from the book "Time in New England" and says this about the subject in the picture: "Mr. Bennett is every Yankee, but every Yankee is by definition his or her own person, and Mr. Bennett has his little piece of string looped there in his collar."

Adams quotes William Stafford also: ""all art is local" but is saved from being trivial by its wider applicability".

The specificity of a portrait is in the appearance of the details: the lines of a face, an earring, an untied shoe, a crooked tie, a crooked mouth, a pen in a shirt pocket, a smile, a frown, a reflection in the eye, a crack in the moulding of the doorway behind the subject. The light is used (by the photographer) to articulate those details.

I look at Strand's portraits a lot and those of August Sander as well. Their pictures describe the subjects so thoroughly and the descriptions are enough in themselves. I don't think Strand or Sander attempted to show the "inner state" of the people they photographed. Just a guess, but I think they might have laughed at the notion of being able to do so.

I've been working on a series of portraits made on the streets of a small city and on the streets and back roads of a rural area near my home for a few years. The pictures are part of two concurrent projects:
www.scrantonproject.com
www.backroadsproject.com

I work quickly: gain permission, ask them to move if necessary (maybe to a better lit area of the street), let them arrange themselves as they see fit and make a few exposures. I have a large collection of pictures now that are quite meaningful to me. I don't pretend they are meaningful to others, but I hope they might be interesting in some way.

These are people I might have walked past or, even worse, dismissed as this or that type of person. But the photograph zeros in on the individual: his clothes, his expression, the specific location and the way he chose to present himself to the camera. It's the _fact_ of the person and moment that interests me.

Michael Poster

http://www.scrantonproject.com/nay_aug/b-crw_0002.htm
http://www.scrantonproject.com/bulls_head_to_nay_aug/040619_111958_10d-01.htm
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/07/harford_fair.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/08/girl_at_harford.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/08/two_young_men_o.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/07/a_man_and_his_w.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/09/a_barber_betwee.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/09/near_ebs_corner.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/10/young_girl_near.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2006/04/coal_city_rolle_7.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/12/father_and_son_1.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2005/10/man_on_boardwal_1.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2006/05/near_montrose_p.html
http://www.backroadsproject.com/archives/2006/06/near_montrose_p_1.html
 

Kevin Bjorke

New member
Some great ones there Michael! I really like that first one, & the missionaries, the folks with Minnie in their yard, the fellow with the hose ready to sweep him off his feet, the Alford girl.... perhaps it's less a matter of revealing "inner state" as reveleaing (whether true or false) the idea -- the suggestion -- that there's some story there, is is about to be there, or has just been there.

(And hopefully a story with more depth than "ooh, that girl is hawt")

A curious effect is in the difference between portraits of people we already know (can identify) and people we do not -- when I first put pix of my kids on my first website, years ago, I labelled them "celebrity portraits for a select audience" -- that is, for my own parents and other relatives (funny how the web persists -- I just looked at those old photos, they're still lurking in a corner on my website, untouched -- another of those powers of photography, heh). When we view a photo of a celebrity, we expect it to be embedded in some broader story of that celebrity -- look, George Clooney has a beard now, or he's playing in the yard (what a sweet boyish lug). If the photo was of some random guy the photographer met while fishing, the photos could be good but the effects would be significantly different.


Diane Arbus: "The more specific you are, the more general it'll be."
 

Michael Poster

New member
Kevin,

Your portrait of Earhart is a good example of the communicative details of an expression and gesture. This man's seen a lot and has the look of someone who is comfortable _being_ seen.

>A curious effect is in the difference between portraits of people we already know (can identify) and people we do not…

You're right, but the making of the picture sometimes lets us know an extraordinary amount (within the boundaries of the descriptive abilities of the camera) about the person we don't know and I think that's the point of portraiture. Problem is, modern media (TV, movies, magazines) have become deft at pushing buttons, making us want too much. Simple description is not enough for many people any more.

041203_064744_20D__MG_0985.jpg
 
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