Does the identity of the sitter matter?

Back to the subject.

I was wondering about my own answer to part of my OP: whether there were any photos of non-famous people that I would like to own. There are plenty that am happy to view and contemplate, but would I spend money on one? I feel it might be like owning an oil painting of someone else’s ancestor. The only ones I can think of that I would snap up if I had the money are HCB’s portrait of his friend Flo-Flo, and Willy Ronis’ of a winegrower in Gironde. That’s because they were clearly characters who would have been fun to know.

Otherwise, I find it hard to relate to a portrait unless there’s some personal connection, even perhaps that we simply shared the same era. So while a portrait of someone unknown might catch and hold my attention, ownership is a lot more personal. So perhaps that was a misleading question.

snusmumriken said:

Back to the subject.

I was wondering about my own answer to part of my OP: whether there were any photos of non-famous people that I would like to own. There are plenty that am happy to view and contemplate, but would I spend money on one? I feel it might be like owning an oil painting of someone else’s ancestor. The only ones I can think of that I would snap up if I had the money are HCB’s portrait of his friend Flo-Flo, and Willy Ronis’ of a winegrower in Gironde. That’s because they were clearly characters who would have been fun to know.

Otherwise, I find it hard to relate to a portrait unless there’s some personal connection, even perhaps that we simply shared the same era. So while a portrait of someone unknown might catch and hold my attention, ownership is a lot more personal. So perhaps that was a misleading question.

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I was thinking about some of the depression era portraits such as the Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” that you mentioned. While the sitter became sort of famous due to the photo, she was an unknown at the time but the nature of the photo introduced a narrative in its time and place, something that portraits can have the power to do.

snusmumriken said:

Back to the subject.

I was wondering about my own answer to part of my OP: whether there were any photos of non-famous people that I would like to own. There are plenty that am happy to view and contemplate, but would I spend money on one? I feel it might be like owning an oil painting of someone else’s ancestor. The only ones I can think of that I would snap up if I had the money are HCB’s portrait of his friend Flo-Flo, and Willy Ronis’ of a winegrower in Gironde. That’s because they were clearly characters who would have been fun to know.

Otherwise, I find it hard to relate to a portrait unless there’s some personal connection, even perhaps that we simply shared the same era. So while a portrait of someone unknown might catch and hold my attention, ownership is a lot more personal. So perhaps that was a misleading question.

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I wanted to buy this print of young Nancy by Emmet Gowin when it was available, but the price was too rich for me. The portrait of Edith is wonderful too but I don’t know if it was made available. Books will have to do. Thanks for this great thread.

The pics are borrowed from the gallery below:

MattKing said:

The answer to the question raised by the OP is yes, it matters

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No.

Every portrait says far more about the photographer, than the subject.

And the viewer’s experience of the portrait says far more about the viewer, than the subject.

You could write a book about this. (In fact, I have.)

Rolleiflexible said:

You could write a book about this. (In fact, I have.)

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Please tell me more. DM me if self-advertisement is against forum rules!

snusmumriken said:

DM me if self-advertisement is against forum rules!

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I don't think we have any objection against a forum member mentioning a publication of theirs, especially if it's on-topic.

"You could write a book about this. (In fact, I have.)"
As have I.
At the time I had about 120 portraits in my collection. I now have about 320. Many of the recent ones are very early English daguerreotypes. Most of my portraits are anonymous. So yes you can appreciate portraits separate from the identity of the sitter. I approached my collection from the point of view of what can be learned or imagined based on even the sparsest of clues-hair styles, clothing, background, framing combined with a knowledge of history of photography and society.
Actually, August Sander was mentioned and his wonderful photograph "Three farmers on the way to a dance" is terrific all by itself. But appreciation of the photograph may well be enhanced knowing the farmers were not farmers at all. Wiki says - Otto and August worked in the iron ore mine, whereas Ewald worked in the iron ore mine's office. It has also been established that all the three young men were enlisted to fight for Germany in World War One in Belgium shortly after the photograph was taken, with only Otto and Ewald surviving the war.
In my own collection I have a photograph by Isaac Benjamin, a photographer active in the Cincinnati area during the 1880’s and 1890’s. The subject is Henry Farny a painter and illustrator, was well known for his paintings of the “North American Indian,”
This portrait was submitted and displayed at the 1893 World’s Fair: Columbian Exposition and won a first prize. This all ties up around Clarence White (who lived in Ohio, attended the fair, in Chicago on his honeymoon, and was familiar with the Ohio Art World). Whites initial mentor was Otto Walter Beck, a friend of Benjamin and of Taft; both White and Benjamin were reviewed by Lorado Taft in the journal Brush and Pencil.
Was this very print one of the photographs that inspired Clarence White to take up photography?
It is very pleasing to me to appreciate a photograph and then after identifying the subject assess how close or far I was.
This photograph, by Rogi Andre, André Kertész's ersatz wife
was anonymous but later I identified the sitter as Dikran Garabed Kelekian, who was closely associated with the origin of the Metropolitan Museum's collection of middle eastern artifacts. My anonymous assessment was remarkably close to his reality.
The sitter has always projected a set of illusions that support the appearance of the person whom they wish to be. The photographer may see the sitter as they present themselves, but also visualizes and controls how that sitter is to be seen, creating a new set of illusions that sustain the provenance of the image. At this point, the portrait is finished. It is a moment of theatre of the past, edited by the photographer and acted by the sitter. There is in fact a trio in place of the duality of the photographer and the sitter. In this scenario, the third person is the viewer.
So while any photographed can be liked, can an anonymous photograph be appreciated?- of course, especially if one is partial to portraits in the first place. Knowing the sitter and/or the photographer may well add to the critical appreciation of the photograph, making it even more enjoyable.

My father would ask people he saw for permission and take their photographs. All of these people were just people he came across in his travels. All of those portraits are interesting in their own right and some of them were printed, framed and mounted on the walls of his home.

Here is a wonderful appreciation of an anonymous photograph

pentaxuser said:

Given the National Portrait Gallery needs visitors, is this really a surprising conclusion? How many "unknowns" would really attract the public's attention?

pentaxuser

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Then why not call it the National Portrait Gallery of Famous People?

I'm taking a break between a shooting session and a processing session. I've had this topic rambling around in my head today as I pointedly tried to exclude people from my images this morning.
I think it depends upon the portrait, and whether there is identifiable stuff going on in the background or not. A nice portrait of someone posed against a backdrop doesn't really ask for any other information (if I myself am the viewer). Once there are glimpses into what may be parts of that subject's life in the background I tend to want to know more. I'm not sure I would hang portraits on my own walls. This may be due to not growing up with family photos on the walls or something else. We had family pictures around (school portraits, etc), but not a "gallery wall" of them. Plus, if you have portraiture on your walls, do visitors not then ask 20 questions about the subjects?

cliveh said:

Then why not call it the National Portrait Gallery of Famous People?

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That would not fit in the space allocated on the building.

cliveh said:

I use to think that the National Portrait Gallery in the UK was about good portraits, but it is in fact about portraits of famous people.

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Amusing but I looked at portraits between 1839 and 1900 and I will wager you know of less that 3%. Most contemporaneous famous people return to anonymity pretty quickly.

snusmumriken said:

Please tell me more. DM me if self-advertisement is against forum rules!

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Awhile ago, I self-published Double Exposures: Essays in Portraiture, which combined 36 pages of writings with 100 portraits of naked women, identified only by city and occupation, all aimed at exactly this question. I will include a link, if interested.


PS: Thanks for asking — it’s nice to have an excuse to go back and revisit an old creation.

Rolleiflexible said:

No.

Every portrait says far more about the photographer, than the subject.

And the viewer’s experience of the portrait says far more about the viewer, than the subject.

You could write a book about this. (In fact, I have.)

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Given Sanders' day job, I expect that he won't mind if I parse the question .
The question is whether the identity of the sitter "matter(s)".
That is to be differentiated from a question about whether it is necessary or advisable that the identity of the sitter be known, or whether or not knowing the identity makes a portrait better (or for that matter worse).
My position is that it matters, because it influences how a portrait is viewed and perceived.
If a sitter is well known, that notoriety will almost certainly have an effect on both those viewing the result and, most likely the photographer creating it. That is how the sitter's identity matters.
It is also why there are many excellent examples of portraiture where the photographer knows the sitter well before creating the photograph. That familiarity with a well known sitter makes it more likely that all parties to the creation will be at ease with each other.

MattKing said:

Given Sanders' day job, I expect that he won't mind if I parse the question .
The question is whether the identity of the sitter "matter(s)".
That is to be differentiated from a question about whether it is necessary or advisable that the identity of the sitter be known, or whether or not knowing the identity makes a portrait better (or for that matter worse).
My position is that it matters, because it influences how a portrait is viewed and perceived.
If a sitter is well known, that notoriety will almost certainly have an effect on both those viewing the result and, most likely the photographer creating it. That is how the sitter's identity matters.
It is also why there are many excellent examples of portraiture where the photographer knows the sitter well before creating the photograph. That familiarity with a well known sitter makes it more likely that all parties to the creation will be at ease with each other.

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OK, let me throw another photographer into the mix: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (one of my favourites). Almost all of the photos for which he is known today (ie his ‘art’ photos rather than the studio portraits by which he made a living) are environmental portraits of ordinary people living their ordinary lives in a fishing community. The identity (name and occupation) is known in almost every case, and many have known living descendants in the same area today. It is possible to piece together a fair impression of the whole community, and to understand the lines of hard work or tragedy written into many of the faces.

But these were all ‘ordinary’ and now largely forgotten characters, who made little lasting impression on the world except by posing briefly for portraits, trading fish and having children. They probably hold no interest for someone from Wisconsin or Laos, who - I imagine - would find it difficult to relate. I think that must explain why Sutcliffe seems a genius to me (these were my people) but seems to be hardly known outside Britain. (There is an Aperture book, but my impression is that he is nowhere near as well known as the rather clinical Sanders. I think Sutcliffe has suffered from being branded a photographer of the picturesque, but he was far more than that.)

A famous photographer taking a photo of a famous person doesn't necessarily mean the resulting image is going to be great, IMHO.

I attended an exhibition of a famous fashion photographer at the NPG back in 2001/02, and to be honest the shots were pretty underwhelming. About a week or so earlier, I'd purchased a small print by a photographer who photographed Voller Corsets. This particular shot was of a woman through the window of an old woodshed, wearing one of these well-known garments. It had mood, and was beautifully executed and even though you couldn't identify the model, it was a superb image, nonetheless.

Flash forward to said exhibition and there too was a photograph of a famous female actor wearing a corset; it was larger-than-life photograph, shot on a plain white background, unexciting lighting - all-in-all, it was nothing special. It was lifeless and to be honest, if the model had been a nobody, it probably wouldn't have ever been considered for an exhibition.

I'd prefer to have a fantastic image taken by an unknown hanging on my wall which gives me pleasure every time I look at it, rather than an insipid image taken by somebody famous - naturally YMMV.

Off topic, but I decided to answer regarding my wife’s M5. We were in the Willoughby 48th st. branch, where I was picking up something. The Leica M5 had been introduced that week. She handled the demo in the store and also took it outside walking along the street and liked the way the camera handled. That camera was for her. She never used any other. The brand “L” meant little to her. She had a very good eye for composition, even when using an iPad. We were long time friends of Louie Stettner.
I have one regret. Stettner did the complete process for making a photograph...shooting, developing, printing, etc. I wish that I had taken some pics of him in darkroom, workshop, etc.

ozphoto said:

A famous photographer taking a photo of a famous person doesn't necessarily mean the resulting image is going to be great, IMHO.

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Yes but when they do, the universe expands. I am still haunted by Robert Doisneau’s portrait of Pablo Picasso in his atelier. Doisneau is my God, yet even he was mortal. When asked how one takes a great photograph, Doisneau replied that he did not know, otherwise he’d do it every time.

MattKing said:

If a sitter is well known, that notoriety will almost certainly have an effect on both those viewing the result and, most likely the photographer creating it. That is how the sitter's identity matters.

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Matt, fair enough. But even there the photographer‘s biases trump common knowledge. In most portraits, the photographer chooses his subject; chooses where to shoot; how to pose the subject; how to light the subject; how to interact with the subject; when to trip the shutter. The photographer chooses which negative to print, and how to print it. The portrait is the cumulation of all those choices.

And all of that happens before the viewer imbues the portrait with all of her biases and presumptions.

My head explodes when someone tells me that I really captured the essence of one of my subjects. As if.

Rolleiflexible said:

Yes but when they do, the universe expands. I am still haunted by Robert Doisneau’s portrait of Pablo Picasso in his atelier. Doisneau is my God, yet even he was mortal. When asked how one takes a great photograph, Doisneau replied that he did not know, otherwise he’d do it every time.

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I’d not seen that one before. It’s wonderful!

Rolleiflexible said:

Yes but when they do, the universe expands. I am still haunted by Robert Doisneau’s portrait of Pablo Picasso in his atelier. Doisneau is my God, yet even he was mortal. When asked how one takes a great photograph, Doisneau replied that he did not know, otherwise he’d do it every time.

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That is a brilliant photograph.
So many "rules" are successfully broken...

BUT...if it had been a photo of Bob the house-painter in his garage, would it still be as brilliant?

Rolleiflexible said:

My head explodes when someone tells me that I really captured the essence of one of my subjects. As if.

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Any explosions?

snusmumriken said:

I’d not seen that one before. It’s wonderful!

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It is a rare piece. I had an opportunity to buy it ages ago, and passed because I couldn't afford it. It's now in the MoMA permanent collection but not on display. The famous image from that session was of Picasso sitting at a table, with croissants arrayed like Picasso's fingers on the table. But I much prefer this one.

MattKing said:

Any explosions?
View attachment 338710

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Matt, you flatter me. Of course that portrait of Melanie (my wife) means the world to me -- I made it at a pivotal moment in our life. Still, I wonder what (if anything) it says about her. Ultimately, I think a portrait succeeds when it fairly reflects the photographer's understanding, such as it is, of his subject. (Which presumes that the photographer bothered to gather some sense of his subject before shooting.)