I seem to fall, always, into the general idea that Karsh wasn't very good. Then I happen upon an exhibition of his work and I remember that it's not so at all, he was very good. Very good indeed. Now that I am old and sophisticated, perhaps it will stick this time around.
The pictures in this show are mostly black and whites, mainly of famous people. I gather that the exhibition will rotate prints in and out, which seems very confusing. If I read the notes properly, Karsh's widow gave a rather large collection to the National Portrait Gallery (why the US one? Karsh was Ottawa based. Surely the Canadians are annoyed!) and this is a subset of those. A few dozen portraits, including some very well known ones.
The dramatic light and large format gives us a wealth of the wrinkles and tiny features that we call "character" in every face. These are nothing like the traditional airbrushed messes we see from lower end commercial guys (Karsh was, after all, commercial). These are all a riot of details, both flattering and unflattering.
Post any of these on an internet forum, and you'd get a huge raft of shit. Plugged up blacks, chopped off limbs, hot spots all over the place. You really need more fill light. You ought to have a hair light. The framing is either too tight or way too loose. Blah blah blah blah. In short, these look nothing like Senior Portraits from LifeTouch Studios.
What Karsh accomplishes with these pictures is wildly beyond the reach of most amateurs, and most low end commercial portraitists. These pictures create a powerful impression that you, the viewer, know the subject a little. Indeed, many of these pictures did a great deal to create our conception of these people. Hitchcock is a haughty auteur, Churchill a glowering lion. This is of course a construct, this is the image of the subject that Karsh chose to make and to keep. Walt Disney was not an affable fellow at all, but this portrait makes us believe that he is.
I think, based on these pictures and on a short film I saw decades ago, that Karsh worked much like a street photographer does. Rather than soaking up the rhythms of the street and learning to feel its flows and patterns, Karsh instead worked with the subject in the same way. He must have learned the patterns, the ebb and flow of emotion and body language in the subject, and was then able to wait.. wait.. and then click at precisely the moment, the decisive moment, the moment when there was a picture, the picture, the one Karsh wanted.
A profile of Snowden I read recently suggests much the same of him.
It is this that separates a good portraitist from a bad one. All the lights in the world, all the strobist studying in the world, won't help you be good if you can't get in synch with the subject, if you can't press the button, click, at the decisive moment.
Conversely, if you can, any god damned lighting at all is fine.
Unfortunately, while lots of people will teach you a bunch of useless shit about lighting, skills that will launch your career right into the bottom end of the portrait market, nobody seems to have any insight into how to work with the subject.
Showing posts with label portraits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label portraits. Show all posts
Monday, April 21, 2014
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Book Review: Photoportraits
Photoportraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
This book is almost 30 years old, so perhaps reviewing it at this late date has no purpose. Be that as it may, I shall proceed. This is a large book with 255 portraits in a very simple presentation. On each pair of facing pages there are between 1 and 6 photographs presented. Single photos are always alone on the right hand page. The most common grouping is 1 photograph left, and 1 right, but there are many sets with several photographs on one or both pages. Every photograph is distinctly an Henri Cartier-Bresson image, and just as distinctly a a portrait. I mean here a portrait in that the subject is clearly a person (or, rarely a small group of people).
This book is almost 30 years old, so perhaps reviewing it at this late date has no purpose. Be that as it may, I shall proceed. This is a large book with 255 portraits in a very simple presentation. On each pair of facing pages there are between 1 and 6 photographs presented. Single photos are always alone on the right hand page. The most common grouping is 1 photograph left, and 1 right, but there are many sets with several photographs on one or both pages. Every photograph is distinctly an Henri Cartier-Bresson image, and just as distinctly a a portrait. I mean here a portrait in that the subject is clearly a person (or, rarely a small group of people).
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
FSA Photo of the Week
I skipped last week for lack of time. Maybe I'll start doing these on Wednesdays. Happy July 4th, US residents!
I like the dynamism in the man's pose, and expression. He's poised, for what, we're not sure (although obviously it's some mundane thing to do with corn). The backdrop of stacked corn is a nice texture, his clothes are great too. Possibly the legs and feet upper right screw the whole thing up, but possibly they anchor the scene in reality a bit making it clearly not staged.
William Singer, homesteader at Hightstown, New Jersey, helping to store corn for the dairy herd which is soon to be acquired by the colony. Russell Lee, Nov. 1936.
I like the dynamism in the man's pose, and expression. He's poised, for what, we're not sure (although obviously it's some mundane thing to do with corn). The backdrop of stacked corn is a nice texture, his clothes are great too. Possibly the legs and feet upper right screw the whole thing up, but possibly they anchor the scene in reality a bit making it clearly not staged.
William Singer, homesteader at Hightstown, New Jersey, helping to store corn for the dairy herd which is soon to be acquired by the colony. Russell Lee, Nov. 1936.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
FSA Photo of the week
This is actually another Office of War Information image.
This is a great environmental portrait, I think. The guy looks like he's at work, a little rumpled and barely posed. There's enough context to suggest his office, but mostly pushed out of focus to grant the subject the limelight. He hasn't quite been surprised at work, but he's giving a definite impression of sparing only a few moments, with his mind on other things.
His posture, his not-quite neutral expression, and the context of the office around him let us impose on him a narrative. We imagine, as we do with portraits, that we have a little window into the man's life and personality.
It's slightly reminiscent of Karsh's famous Churchill portrait, which is probably a big influence on how I personally view this image. It's toned down in mood, both tonally and in the man's demeanor, and therefore less dramatic. But, since we don't know this guy, a little less drama is probably good.
Albert Mayer, Washington, D.C., Principal Architect of Bound Brook project, NJ. shot by Carl Mydans, 1936.
This is a great environmental portrait, I think. The guy looks like he's at work, a little rumpled and barely posed. There's enough context to suggest his office, but mostly pushed out of focus to grant the subject the limelight. He hasn't quite been surprised at work, but he's giving a definite impression of sparing only a few moments, with his mind on other things.
His posture, his not-quite neutral expression, and the context of the office around him let us impose on him a narrative. We imagine, as we do with portraits, that we have a little window into the man's life and personality.
It's slightly reminiscent of Karsh's famous Churchill portrait, which is probably a big influence on how I personally view this image. It's toned down in mood, both tonally and in the man's demeanor, and therefore less dramatic. But, since we don't know this guy, a little less drama is probably good.
Albert Mayer, Washington, D.C., Principal Architect of Bound Brook project, NJ. shot by Carl Mydans, 1936.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
OWI Photo
From the Office of War Information, a portrait.
This is some great stuff here. He's not really looking at us, so we're more immediately aware of the few props and bits of context. His hat is pushed back on his head, is that a style, or did he do that for the photograph? The hat dates the photograph, or at least the subject's sense of style. His shirt suggests a worker, and not a contemporary one.
What's that in the background? Some sort of crane? This could be a dockyard or something, or possibly a mine. I happen to know it's a shipyard, so the crane speaks of things nautical to me, but that might be entirely about foreknowledge.
Positioning the crane right there in the empty space over his shoulder was a stroke of compositional genius, by the way.
The face is excellent. Wrinkled and worn, big droopy nose. He's looking, somewhere, is he thoughtful? Spacing out waiting for the photographer? You can read a lot into his eyes, I think.
Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards, Baltimore, Maryland. A shipyard worker. Arthur S. Siegel. May, 1943.
This is some great stuff here. He's not really looking at us, so we're more immediately aware of the few props and bits of context. His hat is pushed back on his head, is that a style, or did he do that for the photograph? The hat dates the photograph, or at least the subject's sense of style. His shirt suggests a worker, and not a contemporary one.
What's that in the background? Some sort of crane? This could be a dockyard or something, or possibly a mine. I happen to know it's a shipyard, so the crane speaks of things nautical to me, but that might be entirely about foreknowledge.
Positioning the crane right there in the empty space over his shoulder was a stroke of compositional genius, by the way.
The face is excellent. Wrinkled and worn, big droopy nose. He's looking, somewhere, is he thoughtful? Spacing out waiting for the photographer? You can read a lot into his eyes, I think.
Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards, Baltimore, Maryland. A shipyard worker. Arthur S. Siegel. May, 1943.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Portraits II
This posting is arguably a continuation of this posting.
Here is a theory I am working my way through, slowly. What I'm interested in here is how, specifically, we view portraits in which the subject is looking at the camera, versus portraits in which they are not.
When the subject of a portrait is looking directly at the camera, the viewer reads this as eye contact. We become, at a monkey-brain level, interested in what the subject is thinking. We imagine their mental state. This is the basis of social interaction, and incidentally we're extremely good at this.
When the subject is looking elsewhere, the viewer reads this as unawareness. We are now observing the subject remotely, we are "spying" a little. This is still about social interaction, but we're less interested in what they're thinking. We're evaluating posture, body language, objects and activities. In simple monkey-brain terms, we're probably making a friend-or-foe evaluation.
Anyways, the upshot of this is that we're more likely to read "mood" and "personality" exclusively when we're looking at an eyes-on-the-camera portrait. We're going to project onto the image some idea of the model's mental state, and we're going to be put off if we can't.
We're more likely to read "story" and "history" when the model is looking away from the camera, especially if there are more cues visible: clothing, actions, body language.
I think this means, among other things, that if your model is not looking at the camera, you need to give the frame more room to breathe, give more space around the model's face. This might be the source of the rule of composition which asserts that you should give space in the direction the model is looking, and is, I think, certainly connected to that rule.
The flip side is that when you're doing an environmental portrait, where the props are surround are important, having the model look aside is often the stronger choice, or at any rate the choice the image simpler to look at.
Here is a theory I am working my way through, slowly. What I'm interested in here is how, specifically, we view portraits in which the subject is looking at the camera, versus portraits in which they are not.
When the subject of a portrait is looking directly at the camera, the viewer reads this as eye contact. We become, at a monkey-brain level, interested in what the subject is thinking. We imagine their mental state. This is the basis of social interaction, and incidentally we're extremely good at this.
When the subject is looking elsewhere, the viewer reads this as unawareness. We are now observing the subject remotely, we are "spying" a little. This is still about social interaction, but we're less interested in what they're thinking. We're evaluating posture, body language, objects and activities. In simple monkey-brain terms, we're probably making a friend-or-foe evaluation.
Anyways, the upshot of this is that we're more likely to read "mood" and "personality" exclusively when we're looking at an eyes-on-the-camera portrait. We're going to project onto the image some idea of the model's mental state, and we're going to be put off if we can't.
We're more likely to read "story" and "history" when the model is looking away from the camera, especially if there are more cues visible: clothing, actions, body language.
I think this means, among other things, that if your model is not looking at the camera, you need to give the frame more room to breathe, give more space around the model's face. This might be the source of the rule of composition which asserts that you should give space in the direction the model is looking, and is, I think, certainly connected to that rule.
The flip side is that when you're doing an environmental portrait, where the props are surround are important, having the model look aside is often the stronger choice, or at any rate the choice the image simpler to look at.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Portraits
The most common casual remark you will about a portrait is that it "really captures the personality" of the subject. This is, taken literally, completely silly. A personality is a big complicated thing, and it's really unlikely that a single image is going to communicate any meaningful subset of it. Add to that: we rarely know the person portrayed, so what on earth does the viewer know about the actual personality of the subject?
As humans we have an enormous amount of mental machinery devoted to understanding a person's mental state and history from their appearance, especially their face. We constantly build mental models of what a person is thinking, based on their expression. A portrait merely needs to tickle this massive mental machine we already have, to set it in motion. The machine will fill in a complete person with a history, a mood, ideas, and personality. Not, of course, the whole thing, but a skeleton our mind can use to understand the subject, a skeleton which we will perceive in the moment as a complete person.
What's really going on is that a good portrait evokes a strong sense of some element of personality and, if the photographer is lucky or skilled, of narrative. The viewer gets the sense that they know the subject, a little, they understand a little of the subject's nature and life. We glean this sense from cues in the face and the body language. A smile, a frown, a sad look, each might be genuine or false, each might be perceived as genuine or false. The tilt of the head, the direction of gaze. Our mind processes all this material up. If the cues are consistent and strong, if they are not overwhelmed by a false "say cheese" smile or some other obvious artifice, if they are believable, we'll get that sense of personality. A false smile can be believable, if it appears to conceal something else, appears more than merely a response to a camera. Is the personality we sense genuine, an accident, or is the subject merely a good actor?
Who cares?
How can we convey a sense of narrative, of the subject's history, the life they have lived? Beyond the cues in the face and body: scars, wrinkles, any evidence of the passage of time writ on the subject's body. Also, clothing, glasses, jewelry, and other props all help support an idea of narrative. We'll fill in a boxer if we see broken, flattened nose. We'll fill in a widow if we see a ring on the old woman's finger. We'll fill in a hero's story if we see a uniform, we'll fill in scholar's life if we see tweed and a pipe.
This applies to portraits of people we do not recognize, especially, but also to well-known personalities with whom we have no personal contact. Karsh's famous portrait of Churchill without cigar, Churchill looking cranky, has shaped the way we perceive Churchill. In reality, it reveals nothing of the subject's personality, save that he gets cranky when someone snatches his cigar away from him, which is really nothing. In the viewer's mind, however, we form the impression of Churchill as stormy and implacable, supporting the historical view of him as a the master of the pithy bon mot and winner of WWII.
As humans we have an enormous amount of mental machinery devoted to understanding a person's mental state and history from their appearance, especially their face. We constantly build mental models of what a person is thinking, based on their expression. A portrait merely needs to tickle this massive mental machine we already have, to set it in motion. The machine will fill in a complete person with a history, a mood, ideas, and personality. Not, of course, the whole thing, but a skeleton our mind can use to understand the subject, a skeleton which we will perceive in the moment as a complete person.
What's really going on is that a good portrait evokes a strong sense of some element of personality and, if the photographer is lucky or skilled, of narrative. The viewer gets the sense that they know the subject, a little, they understand a little of the subject's nature and life. We glean this sense from cues in the face and the body language. A smile, a frown, a sad look, each might be genuine or false, each might be perceived as genuine or false. The tilt of the head, the direction of gaze. Our mind processes all this material up. If the cues are consistent and strong, if they are not overwhelmed by a false "say cheese" smile or some other obvious artifice, if they are believable, we'll get that sense of personality. A false smile can be believable, if it appears to conceal something else, appears more than merely a response to a camera. Is the personality we sense genuine, an accident, or is the subject merely a good actor?
Who cares?
How can we convey a sense of narrative, of the subject's history, the life they have lived? Beyond the cues in the face and body: scars, wrinkles, any evidence of the passage of time writ on the subject's body. Also, clothing, glasses, jewelry, and other props all help support an idea of narrative. We'll fill in a boxer if we see broken, flattened nose. We'll fill in a widow if we see a ring on the old woman's finger. We'll fill in a hero's story if we see a uniform, we'll fill in scholar's life if we see tweed and a pipe.
This applies to portraits of people we do not recognize, especially, but also to well-known personalities with whom we have no personal contact. Karsh's famous portrait of Churchill without cigar, Churchill looking cranky, has shaped the way we perceive Churchill. In reality, it reveals nothing of the subject's personality, save that he gets cranky when someone snatches his cigar away from him, which is really nothing. In the viewer's mind, however, we form the impression of Churchill as stormy and implacable, supporting the historical view of him as a the master of the pithy bon mot and winner of WWII.
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