on portraits...

[mysteryscribe]

For me photography isnt about the Nikon or the Canon... it isnt about the harsh light or the soft lite. It's about the image. What the image says or doesn't say. Even what prevents it from speaking to me.

Portraits are a love of mine and they are most of all about the total image. What the image says may not be the same as what the subject says. Not a lot of sense there but its there. The art is not the artist and vise virsa.

The photographer can only do so much to influence the message of the subject. He can look for the moment, the best view, the look, but in the end you cant make chicken salad from chicken waste. But what you can do is make chicken waste from chicken salad.

Example: We are making a picture of Lizzie Borden. We can photograph the madness in her eyes, but how we present that madness will be as much the drama as is the madness itself. I can not imagine lizzi holding the bloody axe in high key or with 2/3 of the frame empty. I heard that called negative composition tonight, as if it were a good thing. God I'm old.

So we bring our technique to the picture to influence the outcome, but we don't create the outcome the subject does that. Portrait is a joint effort as is all photography. The artist and the subject working together.

I made a portrait of my grand daughter when she was nine. She was going through her Harry Potter phase. I shot her in a very formal dress with a good amount of flat front lightand some backlight but that isn't special. However at just the right moment I caught her looking at me over her glasses. It's a great portrait but not because of my technique. It great only because I happened to recognize when she looked like herself.

The above did not answer the question why this all of a sudden. I got a little tired of hearing all the technical nonsense going around and I even participate in it. But to me that isn't photography but we all (me included) tend to get wrapped up in the "look what I can do mom" and forget we are at the mercy of the world around us.

Just thought I would try to see if I could bring a little kodak brownie moment around now and then. It isn't much of an answer but it's the best I can come up with sober.

 

[dewey]

LMAO... sober is no fun

I have to agree... sometimes we get caught up in the gear and forget about what it's for. I had the same line of thought this morning... I was walking on a trail next to a river in Vars Ontario and it was one of those moments that reminds me why I love photography so much.

I do love portraits and they can be very special. Since I shoot kids alot I have to deal with soccer moms who aren't sure why my portraits aren't $8.88 like ___Mart. It makes it difficult to enjoy at times, but cashing the check makes it all better. :mrgreen:

We would all do better if we stressed less about a bigger, brighter lens or bigger, better studio setups and spent more time doing what we all love to do.


Good topic sir. :thumbup:

 

[bitteraspects]

i do it for the chicks personally.


i keed i keed

 

[dewey]

:lmao:

Chicks dig scars... oh and portrait photographers

 

[craig]

Certainly the most important thing in a portrait varies from photo to photo.

Arguably the most important things in all aspects of photography is the photographers relationship to the subject and his understanding of the final image. Photographers are hired for their vision. Expression, eyes, lighting etc are only a means to an end. Moms, dads, freak art directors are also elements. Make these elements your own and you will have a great photograph.

 

[Illah]

I think it's the subject really. Pretty girls pollute the internet with vain self portraits all day long and people will look at them. Sometimes they're actually decent pictures that have some effort put into them, sometimes they're very so-so...but people look because they're cute. A horrid woman doing the same would get very little attention - everything else could be equal.

I guess more accurately it would be some who looks 'interesting'. Pretty is interesting. Unique looking people. Iconic people can be interesting solely because of their status, like JFK pictures or those of celebrities. A great photographer can probably add 'interestingness' to an otherwise ordinary looking person (or make intersting looking people even more interesting), but even a begining photorapher with basic skills can probably take great photos of very interesting looking people.

--Illah

 

[fmw]

Example: We are making a picture of Lizzie Borden. We can photograph the madness in her eyes, but how we present that madness will be as much the drama as is the madness itself. I can not imagine lizzi holding the bloody axe in high key or with 2/3 of the frame empty. I heard that called negative composition tonight, as if it were a good thing. God I'm old.

One of my favorite celebrity portraits was Arnold Newman's portrait of Igor Stravinsky. Sorry, I couldn't find it on the web for a link. 2/3 of the frame is taken up with the curvy lid of a concert grand piano and there is Igor in the other 1/3. It is very powerful. Certainly not a negative composition. In his portrait of Leonard Bernstein, he places the subject in a seat in the empty auditorium. 4/5 of the frame is rows and rows of empty seats and in the corner is Mr. Bernstein seated as though he were the entire audience. Very slick composition. Good portraiture doesn't require filling the frame with the subject's head.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Actually that made my point not countered it... There was something in that frame not blackness, whiteness, or a brk wall that has nothing to do with the portrait at all.

My complaint isn't a subject sharing the portrait with the essense of himself or herself. My complaint is with a portrait shot horizontal with the head one one third and two thirds with absolute nothing of interest to fill the rest. Look around, this site if filled with them.

The self portrait I shot is almost all camera not me (by design) but that says something about me. Lizzie borden in a while box in the right hand third and two thirds left empty Isn't composition, it's bull waste. Of balance composition just to be different is poor composition. The man with the cigar isn't. And that is the rule my friend is talking about here.

The rule is you don't chop off something valuable to force compositon on a shot. It isn't you just leave the space in there because you have seen someone else do it and people were lining up to say atta boy. Yes you have to march to your own drummer but for gods sake know what tune he is playing. Even more important why he is a drummer.

Now everyone before you nail me to a tree remember it's just my opinion and I have no ability to enforce that or to force you to shoot better pictures.

I certainly don't fill the frame but something that is a part of the image does...Now if you think this next one is good composition we really dont see eye to eye.

It might be an okay picture but it isnt a good portrait or good composition.

 

[fmw]

As much as you hate it, I do agree with you. By the way, I learned photography with a Speed Graphic 1/2 a century ago. I still have the 4X5 negatives. I also had a 120 back for it and three lens boards with lenses. It sure was a versatile camera system but a true pain to carry around. Those old Ektar lenses were pretty good.

 

[Michael Humle]

I think your self-portrait is one of the best I've seen in a quite awhile. Your comosition, use of light and color do indeed tell a story about you...one I find very interesting! In a good and expansive way...

 

[mysteryscribe]

As you probably know I butcher and remanufacture cameras. I bought an old 3a that the seller one ebay said he couldn't get open. When it arrived I found that the struts were bent. I pulled the lens and tested it. The shutter was as tight as the day it was made. The glass was perfect. I figure the buyer broke the strut the first week or so trying to close it. He was rich enough or the camera was so inconenient that he put it away and forgot it. He must have put it in a climate controlled room rather than a basement.

To make a long story short I mounted it on a homemade lens board and that is the best lens I have for my 4x5 graflex. It is 170mm or so but damn it is nice. I only shot it twice because pack mules are out of fashion now.


On the agree I'll save you a tree next door. One more and we will have the right number.

 

[mysteryscribe]

I have used the phrase 'man with cigar' a bunch of times and I guess one of you might find it interesting where it comes from.

When Barbara, my first teacher and a painter of no renoun, was beating composition into my head it was like this... A single person in a portrait is ALWAYS vertical... EXCEPT when it isn't. Now as you can image that made no sense to me at and it wouldn't have even if I had been sitting at my school desk instead of on an unmade bed with a box of krispy kreme donuts and a single mug of black coffee between us.

Barbara was a young painter and I was in art school on the vietnam gi bill. We were hardly kids. Actually I didn't want to work. Anyway you know I had to ask, "Except when it isn't, what the hell does that mean?"

"It means your first thought should be vertical, then you look for reasons that it isn't."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it is natural for you to think horizontal your 35mm piece of crap is setup horizontal. That is the easiest thing to think. It's a habit you have to break. And you have chocolate on your nose slob."

Wiping my nose. "So I just shoot all single people veritcal and im cool right?"

"Of course not. Nothing is ever that easy."

"So what is the exception."

"The exception is the man with the long cigar rule. Which is you dont chop a needed part of the image just to force it to comply with a preconcieved idea."

"A man with long cigar is going to look stupid vertical."

Probably won't help you to break bad habits but I always liked that story and it actually is true. Well Im not so sure about the chocolate any more, but I do remember Barbara and the Sunday morning lesson over donuts.

 

[markc]

Great story. And just because I am who I am, I went looking for examples:

Short cigar, but still...
A bit longer (and prettier subject)
and you have to have a cute girl
Why a vertical is a bad idea
and this one should be vertical (in my opinion)

 

[mysteryscribe]

Im not sharing donuts with you but... you just made a new rule... a man/woman with a cigar should always horizontal except when it shouldn't be. In that first one the end of the cigar is missing. Makes me feel less enthusiastic but the other one, face to the camera, should be. See he knew Barbara,makes me wonder who all she shared donuts with, but he stopped learning.

By the way if you ever get to take private lessons from a painter, make sure it is one of the opposite sex. It makes sharing a tossed salad, from a dutch oven, with one fork each, a lot more fun.

I honestly can remember her telling me over that and french bread, "The big differences between what I do, and what you want to do is that... photography is about light and good painting is about dark. Now that one she didn't explain but I did got a feel for it later. I still didn't go over to the dark side.

Being a painter is too much work for me. Besides I dont look good enough naked and like her I cant afford to buy new clothes all the time.

 

[markc]

I agree with you on that first one. The hand and smoke extends it so I could see it going either way. The cigar being longer would make it a stronger horizontal.