just a statement of fact

[mysteryscribe]

but if you step on it and fall into the river is it still a bridge.

Im sorry im just not the kind to dummy something down to please everyone.... If I stand alone in my thinking then I do but im sorry a picture of a person who you wouldnt hang on a wall of your home is not a protrait its a snapshot and i have made plenty of them.

Before we go back to the toss away cam you can most definitely make a decent portrait with one. The equipment isnt the issue the quality of the image is though at least in my mind.

By the way we dont have to agree on which images are portraits that wasn't my intent. My intent was to say simply that everything with a person in it doesn't qualify as a portrait. I don't see how that is even arguable but it seems to be lol....

 

[LaFoto]

But did you not start this whole thread by tossing out your "simple statement" IN ORDER TO make us think and discuss the matter thrown in front of us?

So there. Don't apologize.
As long as this discussion is being led with "good manners" it can be led and everyone can bring forward their points, I think.

The thing that I still haven't got sorted in my mind - in my attempt to find out what goes on in YOUR mind, that is - is: what makes the photo of a person's face and shoulders alone a portrait and when does it stay just "a photo of said person"? Is it a portrait when you seat the person somewhere and say: "I now want to take a photo of you"? But when you sneak up to them and take their pictures candidly it is not? Just because it was taken candidly? No matter how much this photo might have only the person (maybe even only the person's face) as its subject?

For example:

Would you consider this photo of Julie, the person who took the part of "Irene" in our Händel oratorio performance, taken by me during rehearsal with her not knowing I was taking photos, just "a photo of Julie", or would you say this is a portrait since it shows her in what she is doing and loves to do and does for a living, so it shows more of herself than a static studio portrait shoot would do?
Or does this photo contain too many other things (stage props) to still be a portrait?

Or would this one qualify more/less?

Or this one?

Help me to see what you mean, will you?

 

[mysteryscribe]

Let me try by saying nobody is sure what a portrait is I think that is self evident. Most of us can say what a portrait isn't. At least for us individually.

is
photograph of a person that is well exposed and cropped. One that shows something about the person more than they have on a red top.

These days those items should be easy enough to do with any equipment and lighting situation normally available to most photographers on this site. With all the post production things available surely that isnt an insurmountable task.

Much easier to see if not define are snapshots of people that may or may not hang on a wall but are not my personal idea of a portrait.

is not
I try to not single out a picture i have seen here recently so that people can say hes talking about me. I have to go back a ways since I dont genereally shoot snapshots. Not that Im that good but I shoot mostly still life and landscape now. Im not the family photographer any more.

This is not a portrait and I took it so im not picking on anyone else.

Sure the line is blurred but I think of the term portrait being more than a snapshot of a person. I find it hard to believe that there is any doubt that such is the case frankly but I know that it is.

In the end it goes back to what I said before. It might be like porno I can't define it but I know the difference and i would think that everyone here knows that the image above is not a portrait even thought the main object is a person.

The dictionary tells us what it is not what it isnt...

Now I could be wrong but I don't think I said that a portrait had to be head and shoulders. I have made a ton of full length so if I said that Im sorry for misleading you.

I shot full length of a person standing in front of the mokey cage would not seem to me to be a portrait. the pictures you show here are all a little more telling than I went to zoo on friday. Do i think they are perfect no i don't. Do I think they qualify as portraits? Probably they do they say something to me. You sister in front of the monkey house won't speak to me that is a part of it I think as well as the quality of the shot.

 

[dewey]

I guess my rub is with the title "just a statement of fact". It's not a statement of fact it's your opinion.

Maybe you could show us your portrait gallery so we could know what a portrait is?

 

[mysteryscribe]

Okay if this will make you feel betting In my opinion it is a fact...

I frankly dont have a portrait gallery dewey i was in business before there were digital files to post.

I have my portraits hanging on a wall but if you like i can digitalize some negatives...this isnt about my portraits being better than your snapshots. I frankly am not in the business so I have nothing to gain of a personal nature in this discussion. It also isnt a matter of who does or does not sell portraits. Its just a matter of every picture with a person Is not a portrait. I think this discusion is getting out of hand.

I think we can find plenty of portraits around to show the difference, between them and what I stuck up above this post. But if you cant see it by now, you probably wont see it no matter what I put up here. But again if you like I'll be happy to post my portraits after I scan a couple of negatives. Or you can look at my website below to see the retro portraits there

I think that I have pretty much explained my point of view. And in my mind it is a fact maybe not in yours, So can you tell me with a straight face the snapshot I posted above is a portrait. If you believe that I'll never post another word on this subject because there is no hope of making anyone understand anything.

 

[mysteryscribe]

I did find a portrait I had digitalized here you go this is A portrait not the only kind by any means. I think it is a little more portrait like than the last image I posted..

I did have this one digital as well...

Now I know you dont want to hear it but these are a lot different from the kid out of focus poor color and a toy. I love my grand son and I have some shots I do have on my wall but I sure as hell dont consider that one a portriat.

 

[mysteryscribe]

this image has a lot of meaning to me but I dont consider it a portrait it is just a snapshot.

 

[markc]

I'm just using your own rules here, but they aren't portraits because I wouldn't hang them on my wall. The direct on-camera flash in the second one is enough for it to be a snapshot in my mind. The first one is too for other reasons.

Using my own definitions they would be both snapshots and portraits, but that's me. Good snapshots and poor/mediocre portraits.

 

[mysteryscribe]

You know what?
I'm going to let mark have the last word this time. But note he made the distinction between a snapshot and a portrait lol

 

[LaFoto]

Actually, mysteryscribe, I think that most readers of and contributors to this discussion know what you mean to say and also quite well know the difference between a snapshot and a portrait, though when we leave the realm of the pure and clearly detectable just-snapshot photo it is where the lines become blurry.

I am convinced you started this thread with some member's photo in mind that was called a portrait while you thought in silence: "Portrait? This? Never!"

I am very far from wanting to find out which photo it was and by whom.

All I want to say is that obviously the lines are getting blurred at some point ... and I tried to help finding the distinction by using my example of the young Italian tourist taking a photo (portrait?) of his girlfriend in Sanssouci park in Potsdam while I took a photo of the scene, i.e. of him taking her photo. My photo is no portrait, I should say. It is just a photo of the two. His photo, on the other hand, MAY well have turned out a portrait of his girlfriend. What do I know? She was sitting there posing for him. He - so I am convinced - wanted it to be a portrait and maybe she now looks so lovely to him out of the frame he got back in August in Sanssouci park that he even hung this photo on his wall.

At the same time, should you ever see that photo, you might say: no portrait. Not to my mind. No.

But then that is a matter of opinion, not a statement of facts, is it?

What I do agree with is: Not every photo that shows a person automatically is a portrait of said person.

 

[mysteryscribe]

that, my dear photo, was the only thing I meant to say. It got sidetracked somehow into definition. But the fact is not every picture of a person is a portrait by quality or intention. It kind of mushroomed out of control from there somehow. But it was a worthwhile discussion. So I'll take the heat. And when someone comes up and tells me that if that pic of my grandson was their grandson they would hang it on the wall, rather than wait for better on, I'll admit the basic statement was wrong. I certainly hope no one does it will just ruin my faith in the human's ability to judge pure trash and it is pure trash even if i made it.

Lets we forget in all the confusion of opinions this was the original statement given as a fact ,,,,every picture with a person it it is NOT a portrait... Yes I should have added not necessarily a portrait but hell im old. it made sense to me when i wrote it.


By the way if the portrait examples I put up were my daughter or my wife I would hang them but not the shot of my grandson or the other lady they are just bad snapshots. I say that only after some thought. One should not defend their work because it speaks for itself, but one should also not be afriad to admit they have poor taste and obviously I do....lol.

 

[The_Traveler]

fair enough, I (personally) think a portrait should say something about the person. Not just be a mirror image.

This is generally how I feel about an image of anything. Just reproducing what is in the field of the lens well and accurately does not a good picture make. I see many LF pictures that are well exposed, horizontals horizontal, verticals vertical, DOF perfect, 50 shades of grey - and they tell me nothing, evoke no feelings in me, keave me cold.

A good picture is not necessarily a reproduction.

 

[dgs]

This is a photographic image (how's that for a cop out? <grin>) I have very little if any emotional involvement with. I did take the photographic image but at this point won't describe how or why.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j255/First235/bride.jpg

Is this a portrait? Why or why not?

I promise faithfully to be neither offended nor gratified by any frank comment of this picture. I literally don't care, so go after it!

 

[mysteryscribe]

If you shot it at my daughter's wedding I would ask if you could lighten up the picture of my daughter, so I could hang it on my wall So yes I personally would consider it worthy of being called portrait.

But then what do I know.

 

[The_Traveler]

If you shot it at my daughter's wedding I would ask

that you crop it tighter and higher so that it frames her face and gets away from her cleavage, make it brighter and add a little contrast, then blur and vignette the corners - and then it would be a portrait I'd like to have.

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/7651/bride2gv4.jpg

Not all the impact goes in through the lens.