PORTRAITS
Portraits, the capturing of a likeness and spirit of a person has been a pursuit for thousands of years. Paintings of gods in Egypt and Greece, to portrait paintings of royalty and aristocrats, to the unabashedly narcissistic selfie of today.
Capturing portraits come with their own set of hurdles that vary with each session and artist. Some walk into a photo studio with the same eagerness as a proctology exam – others are out to just have fun and get an interesting shot!
A portrait!
What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound.
Baudelaire•1859
Sometimes the session is solely the artist and myself, while other times a whole entourage come in tow. I never know exactly how the session will go but at the end of the day, I have captured some photographic interpretation of the artist.
A person himself believes that all the other portraits are good likenesses except the one of himself.
Edvard Munch
every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
When you photograph a face . . .you photograph the soul behind it.
Jean-Luc Godard
One Comment
Hi James
I am an emerger photographer, with a long story. Your portraits, as well as your other type of photography, influenced me. I liked them. probably my question is not very important, but I am going to ask you. Your models do not look at your camera, and in some case, the photos look like documentary photos. What is the difference between a documentary and a portrait? They both show the life and the soul? Why do I ask this question? Because I would like to know how much should I influence my models? If I have to follow their emotion, what is my job as a photographer? and some other question like that. I hope I can see you in your exhibition and its opening day, I got information about that a bit late. Best Regards,