Portrait Photography – Showing Character in the Face

Even at a distance, occupying a small part of a larger scene, a face in a photograph is like a beacon for the viewer’s attention. A face is a natural focus of interest, particularly if it is looking directly towards the camera. It is where we look in order to find out anything about someone’s personality, thoughts and intentions, and even when it is photographed alone and unadorned it can make, not surprisingly, the most compelling type of portrait.

Possible the most important point to make in portrait photography, although it has a curiously negative ring to it, is that there is absolutely no formula approach. Even a superficial glance at the work of the most renowned portrait photographers shows a variety, and even a contradiction, of methods. Some, like Irving Penn, achieve results by isolating their sitters, both physically in a bare studio and emotionally, even to the point of allowing them to feel self-conscious and uncomfortable. Others, like Annie Leibowitz, become as intimate as possible to gain a sometimes extraordinary co-operation. Anne is known to push portraiture in a new direction. It is an important part of her working method in producing jaw dropping portraits. Cecil Beaton, specializing in portraits of the famous, imposed a distinct personal style on all his portraits, which are typically lit and directed in the grand manner. Cecil relied heavily on posing his sitter to emphasize the eye contact. This is usually achieved by leaning forward, head slightly down, eyes up and using catchlighting.

So the essential element in portrait photography is the manner of dealing with the subjects. This is inevitably a very person matter, because however short the session may be, it involves some form of relationship. This is something that studio photographers acquire with experience, but perhaps the most sensible guide to developing a method of directing a sitter is to follow one’s own inclinations: acting out of character in order to elicit a certain kind of response from a subject is more likely to confuse the occasion. Given mastery of the given techniques – a matter of no great difficult – success depends principally on the interplay between two personalities: that of the photographer and that of the sitter. A dominating attitude on the part of the photographer may work just as well as a retiring one, while the character of the sitter more often than not unpredictable – gives photography an air of uncertainty. This alone is a source of interest and excitement usually lacking in still-life photography.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/annie-leibovitz/life-through-a-lens/16/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Beaton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Penn