Social mechanics and honesty in portraiture

An interesting study: Compare the portraits of both Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz that were done by Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams. Very telling, at least to me. In both cases I see patient tolerance but not repect or esteem in the eyes when Adams was the photographer, and engagement when Cunningham photographed them. I think enthusiasm and love of life is contagious. Sometimes instantaneous.

I also think we humans are only looking at ourselves in others portraits. It's way too lofty for me to think that I can really know Frieda Kahlo by looking at Imogen's portrait. But I think I see feelings reminiscent of my own in her face. Perhaps that's why a portrait of a stranger still works. We see ourselves in them.

Motivation? I'm the shyest person in the world. But I found that deeper needs could overcome that from time to time. I was able to fetch a fine wife 31 years ago, and smart enough to keep her. And I also find that I want to do portraiture bad enough to set aside the shyness from time to time and make it happen. It seems it would be so much easier if I were gregarious and outgoing, but would it. We all bring a certain percentage of the chemistry to the portrait don't we. That's why there are as endless possibilities as there are portraitists and subjects.

Personally, my goal is to make the sitter feel important and valued. That goal has shaped the way I work and keeps me from resorting to the kind of manipulation used by Avedon.

If it's in black and white, and printed on fiber paper, it's a Portrait.

If it's in color, processed at K-Mart, or printed on an inkjet, it's a snapshot.

Sanders

'I think enthusiasm and love of life is contagious. Sometimes instantaneous.'.......You've done it again Gim Galli!!.........That's a helliva statement...........and I think you can communicate w/other folks that fact on a nonverbal basis...........'I'm after a nice shot if I can get it, only with your permission if you happen to be in mood'...................'how bout it?'.........with only a look, and I think folks become enthusiastic if you're nice enough to include them in the decision making process.

The worst fear of people is that you'll photograph them and make them appear foolish, forget that they want their privacy. In fact that's the first thing I say, if I get a question about what the photograph will be used for, I hand out my card, and tell them 'listen, I'm not gonna make you look foolish'.

You spend time in a park, you can tell somebody in a good mood out enjoying some fresh air, who might just think being photographed by somebody who appears serious about it would be fun, as opposed to a young lady sitting on the grass, whose just had a bigtime argument with her man, and is sitting there trying to sort things out.

I like portraiture of people i do not know , you never know what they will react like when you ask them to be photographed ,and if they agree you do not know how they will react when you pull out an 8x10 out of the back sit of the truck.
I could tell you a lot of stories , but my favorite is the one when
I asked an old man walking by a side of lakeshore on a sunny april day couple years ago, it was getting warmer and the snow was begining to melt I drove buy him first, but kept looking in my rear view mirror, he was getting smaller and smaller , I threw my truck in reverse and backed up , rolled my window down and asked him if I could photograph him, he said " I"ll pay you" I said "no you won't I will give you a print for it" ...While setting up I kept talking to him just to get to know him a bit, he was an old Sweed who's family came here at a turn of last Century and settled here at the lake in Maine , he was 88 years old and when I asked him if he was ever married his reply was"ONLY TO MY RIGHT HAND",I laughed and said " you are just a dirty old man , aren't you?" he smiled and that is the photograph you see here:

http://www.ilyaaskinazi.com/portrait.php?picture=/images/mr_anderson.jpg

When I went back to his cabin a week later, I could not believe in what condition this man lived , the floor was covered in trash , he did not have his shoes on and his tow nails were black, he looked neglected...
When he saw the photograph he lit right up and asked me to hang it on the wall for him , I tryed to walk without steping on the used TV dinner trays ,after hanging it I headed to the door and said "I'll see you", he looked at me and said "you'll see me? you'll see me when?", for the lack of anything to say, I said " On the other side"...

A few months passed and...

I had a show coming up and I included this portrait in it, a local paper ran a story on me and this portrait was one of the prints they used in the article, a few people that had seen the portrait in the paper recognized him.
A few month passed and ...
I had a lady in her late 50's came to see me in the showroom ( I sell cars ) , she told me that when she was a kid she was scared of this old man walking around the lake , but said that I did a good thing by taking his portrait , that he was a charactor and he has passed away in september ....

That is what a portrait of a stranger to me...

All this made me think(danger, danger)... When one photographs a nude how close do you get to understand this person? how much danger is there in getting involved? Why do I ask this ? Well because to me a portrait has as much intimacy as a nude , otherwise it is is just a photgraph of a stranger,is't ?

I've never been able to accept Avedon's idea of attaining 'accuracy' rather than 'truth', though I see what he's getting at.

I think we do expect at least a version of 'truth' from what is 'accurate' (and maybe that's all of 'truth' we're ever likely to get under any circumstances).

I think maybe all we can aim for though is not even what is accurate (at least in an all-defining sense) but what is coherent and significant, if only for that moment, both for the person being photographed and for the viewer. A bit like memory perhaps - it's elusive and changing and more often than not what we make it - but that doesn't mean it's any less 'real' or that there is even an objective all-inclusive 'reality' that exists.

It would always be important to me to have some sort of a connection (if not a relationship) with a subject.

A portrait is the trace of an encounter, and so I don't think it qualifies to be judged on a truthfulness/accuracy scale. Truthfulness of a photo is always relative to a specific purpose (e.g. passeport photo vs. corporate portrait).
A portrait can direct us towards the specific, the individual (Karsh's Churchill, Avedon's portraits of celebrity) but it can also lead us towards the universal, as is the case for August Sanders portrait of "types." So if accuracy or truth were the only admissible criterion, Sanders's portraits would fail because they are symbolic rather than mimetic.

A portrait for me is the making of a good image by depicting somebody, nothing less, nothing more.

I think it has to be judged rather with epithets such as effective, well-executed, attractive, provocative, pointed, sharp, imaginative, meaningful, significant, etc.

Rather than speculate about Avedon, I suggest Dead Link Removed

As far as "legitimacy" goes, I personally have absolutely no problem in feeling legitimate in what I do. In fact I rationalize it to myself that I am required to take the pictures I take, following the (egocentric (& around here highly contentious)) logic that:

• I want to take good pictures. Thre other kind are a waste of my limited time here on Earth.
• Good pictures to me are those that are lasting and insightful.
• Lasting and insightful pictures involve people, not rocks and trees.
• If a truly great image is made, that person is immortalized.
• The great bulk of interesting people around me I do not know yet.
• Most people don't realize who great they may appear in a photo.
• I have the ability to create such photos (I tell myself).
• Everyone wants to be immortal.
• Therefore:
• I owe it to strangers to photograph them to the best of my ability.

If I saw them in the street in front of a speeding truck, I would rush to pull them out of harm's way, rather than just standing by end seeing their life end. Just as certainly, if there is a great photographic moment in someone's life that I can capture, I should feel obligated to do so, rather than leaving it lost forever.

With this (delusional) attitude in mind, I can work with 100% conviction & need no appeal to external authority figures like a school, picture editor, etc.

ilya1963 said:

All this made me think(danger, danger)... When one photographs a nude how close do you get to understand this person? how much danger is there in getting involved? Why do I ask this ? Well because to me a portrait has as much intimacy as a nude , otherwise it is is just a photgraph of a stranger,is't ?

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Portraiture is an intimate exercise, and that is so regardless of age or gender or state of dress. Nudity can complicate matters somewhat, but not nearly as much as most imagine.

To answer your first question: If you're photographing a nude portrait, you have to get just as close to a nude subject, emotionally, as you do a clothed subject -- it's the same process. But it doesn't pose any risk of "getting involved." It's not that kind of intimacy. And any photographer who confuses the two, will succeed at neither.

Sanders McNew

mhv said:

A portrait is the trace of an encounter,

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It can be the very essence of an encounter.

mhv said:

A portrait for me is the making of a good image by depicting somebody, nothing less, nothing more.

I think it has to be judged rather with epithets such as effective, well-executed, attractive, provocative, pointed, sharp, imaginative, meaningful, significant, etc.

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But then these are just words - and some of them are a lot more straightforward than others. If something is effective or meaningful, then what is it that makes it so?

I think you might be saying the same as me - but I wouldn't deny that there is an 'accuracy' and a 'truth' in finding something 'significant and coherent' (as I put it, don't know if those are the best words to use). Certainly I'd say I aim for something that has a truthfulness contained in it when I take a picture of someone, otherwise I wouldn't bother doing it. But I realise you can't distill it all into 'truth' or 'accuracy', (forget Avedon I'm using these terms for myself ). Though maybe you can take a portrait in a way that is 'honest' - that is, done by the photographer with some kind of integrity, including an awareness of the limitations.

"To answer your first question: If you're photographing a nude portrait, you have to get just as close to a nude subject, emotionally, as you do a clothed subject -- it's the same process. But it doesn't pose any risk of "getting involved." It's not that kind of intimacy. And any photographer who confuses the two, will succeed at neither."

Sanders:
------
"December 9th 1934.
The first nudes of C.(Charis Wilson) were easily amongst the finest I had done, perhaps the finest. I was defeinitely interested now , and new that she knew I was. I felt a response. But I am slow , even when I feel sure , especialy if I am deeply moved.I did not wait long before making the second series which was made on April 22, a day to always remember. I knew now what was coming; eyes don't lie and she wore no mask. Even so I opened a bottle of wine to help build up my ego. You see I really wanted C. hence my hesitation.
And i worked with hesitation;photography had a bad second place. I made some eighteen negatives, delaying always delaying , until at last she lay there below me waiting, holding my eyes with hers. And I was lost and have been ever since. A new and important chapter in my life opened on Sunday afternoon, April 22 1934"
Edward Weston- page 283 daybooks....

Photography is life

I just don't think what an artist says means anywhere near as much as what he/she does. I've followed Avedon's career closely until his death, since he was one of my inspirations, .................some folks know Avedon by his 'American West' work, back in the '80s, I was 33 when he did the highly theatrical/stylized shot of Natasha Kinski and the snake, the shot was world famous, and a big splash, so Avedon could and did do it both ways.

Anybody ever see a proof of an Avedon portrait with printing instructions? I mean countless areas and detailed areas to be burned and dodged and whatever, Avedon was very detailed and meticulous, and despite the fact that the original subject matter conveyed the impression of the style of the 'found portrait'/you just stumbled onto a great face and got a great shot, these shots were manipulated as much and sometimes more than his theatrical/stylized shots.

I hold Avedon in the highest esteem, but in terms of the 'hoopla' about his style, this has always amused me, particularly when Avedon would shoot portraits which kinda gave me the impression that he was trying out for a job with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, it just seemed to me be like 'swattin flies with a sledgehammer', not that the images aren't valid, they are, but looking 'slackjawed' as someone else put it, and blankly staring into the lens isn't anymore nearer the 'truth' than any other style.

Even though I could never know what some of the folks were thinking, as sitters for Avedon when he was doing the 'American West' portraits, I got the impression that a few were standing there thinkin 'let me just hold still'.

Now mind you, when he's having fun/waxing lyrical, I definitely prefered this style, but irregardless of whatever style Avedon was engaged in at any particular time, even Avedon admitted that it was all a put on.

I think the Director Bernardo Bertolucci(am I spelling that right?) put it best when they were filming interviews with him and Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro(spelling?). First they show Vittorio Storaro going on and on about filters and the esoteric meaning of each of his choices, real transcendental stuff, the camera crew goes over and interviews Bertolucci whose been watching the Storaro interview with a smile on his face and I guess somebody asks Bertolucci if he understood what Storaro has just said.

Bertolucci's response(I'm paraphrasing all this) was that whatever Storaro said, he didn't try to understand it, he accepted it as what Storaro needed to do mentally to come up with what he produces, and I took from what Bertolucci said, that essentially the mental gyrations of another persons mind, let along what he says, is impossible to decipher in terms of what it really means or ultimately what a person does.

There is a big difference between bringing photography into a liaison, and using photography to create liaisons.

I recognize that photographers become involved sometimes with their models. Take me: I am about to marry one of my models. But that came later. During the session, she was just another subject.

Every portrait session is an exercise in flirtation. And, again, that is true regardless of age or gender or state of dress. It is part of the process of building the connection that creates the environment that produces a successful portrait. But acting on that connection is just plain wrong -- at least, it is wrong in the confines of the shoot, when your subject has dropped her guard (and her clothes) and has bared herself, emotionally and physically, to you and your camera. It violates the trust that successful portraiture demands.

Sanders

Sanders McNew said:

Every portrait session is an exercise in flirtation.
Sanders

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You mean speaking for yourself?

'Flirtation' is a very particular way of relating to people. It's not a word I'd choose to describe how I relate to people when I take pictures most of the time - maybe not any of the time .... Which isn't to put any value-judgement on it..

I always at first shoot then I ask. That is what for is Leica or Nikon.
www.Leica-R.com

Cate, I realize the word is capable of many meanings, especially going from the US to the UK, and it probably wasn't the wisest choice in an online discussion since it is capable of so much nuance. I would probably agree with you, that the meaning I believe you have ascribed to it, is not an appropriate way for a photographer to conduct himself or herself. Which, of course, was the whole point of my post. Sanders

We all come here from all kinds of walks of life and what unites us is a camera how we use it is for the beholder to decide...

At the end of the day the print is all one has to show ...

Sanders McNew said:

would probably agree with you, that the meaning I believe you have ascribed to it, is not an appropriate way for a photographer to conduct himself or herself. Which, of course, was the whole point of my post. Sanders

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I wasn't meaning to suggest inappropriateness, there's nothing necessarily wrong with flirtation in itself, especially as you made clear, you wouldn't act on it. I was just interested that we all have different ways of relating to subjects, and probably we're all trying to achieve different things, just as we're all different people. Good thing really, otherwise our pictures would all be the same....

Having "flirted" with disaster on more than one occasion, I would agree that the word "flirt" might have many meanings, and therefore be loaded and be problematic.

I do like the image though - the sort of dance you do with your subject - sometimes teasing out a little bit of revelation, sometimes a lot. Sometimes exposing a little bit of your personal self in "trade", sometimes a lot.

Any suggestions for another, similar word, with the same effect?

Matt

Stargazer said:

But then these are just words - and some of them are a lot more straightforward than others. If something is effective or meaningful, then what is it that makes it so?

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That is the core of a huge problem: what is "profound", what is "meaningful" in art.

I don't think truth cannot be part of a portrait, so we're probably of the same opnion here. Some very good portraits also depend on their factual truthfulness. But it's only one aspect of a portrait, and not the one that is indispensable.

I prefer using a very narrow definition of truth, something along the lines of "it is true to say that such and such." In art, the concept of truth is often extended to the ideas of "truth to life" "poetic truth" or something along these lines. What these statements imply is that a work of art so qualified has an important resonance with our lives. But they can be fictional, they can be downright lying (i.e. asserting something that is not the case, in the case of a misguided historical drama for instance) but that does not prevent them from being "true to life" as we say. "Truth to life" is not truth in a logical, propositional sense. It's more a concept like "relevance."

So is honesty a necessary skill in portraiture? Perhaps not. I think empathy, understanding, awareness of one's position, abilities to interact with a subject are what really matters. Michael McBlane pretty much summed up the question of "truth" regarding people: we are multi-faceted and a portrait is only a slice of it. I would add that a portrait is in turn a multi-faceted object, so that there is no single, linear trajectory from the surface of the picture to the "truth" of the person depicted.

I'd like to add a little quotation from literary scholar and critic René Wellek: "a literary work of art is not a simple object but rather a highly complex organization of a stratified character with multiple meanings and relationships . . . . A modern analysis of the work of art has to begin with more complex questions: its mode of existence, its system of strata."

I think the same applies to photography.

mhv said:

So is honesty a necessary skill in portraiture? Perhaps not. I think empathy, understanding, awareness of one's position, abilities to interact with a subject are what really matters. Michael McBlane pretty much summed up the question of "truth" regarding people: we are multi-faceted and a portrait is only a slice of it. I would add that a portrait is in turn a multi-faceted object, so that there is no single, linear trajectory from the surface of the picture to the "truth" of the person depicted.

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I can agree with much of that (and what Michael McBlane says seems to be what's already been said anyway but more erudite . )

As for honesty, in this context I don't connect it so much with the idea of 'truth' (& your definitions of it, which I don't disagree with). I see it as having more to do with 'empathy, understanding, awareness of one's position, abilities to interact with a subject'....I suppose honesty above all with yourself and your motives, and straightforwardness and authenticity in your approach to and relationship with people you are photographing.

Where is Blansky, I miss his wit and writting...

Cate,
"I suppose honesty above all with yourself and your motives, and straightforwardness and authenticity in your approach to and relationship with people you are photographing."

The question is: if honesty in the process hurt others around you , how much do you give up to be honest with yourself?

"April 22,1934.
After eight months we are closer together then ever.Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certan heights reaching with no other love.
Domestic relations have been severely strained, quite to the braking point,casting a shadow over my association with C.A change must take place and soon. I must have peace to enjoy,fulfill,this beauty." EW- daybooks page 283

Sorry all, I am not a nut just happen to have the book open on that page,this has been on my mind for a year now...

Honesty... That is a big word , is it when you follow your wants or wants or needs of others? ILYA

ilya1963 said:

The question is: if honesty in the process hurt others around you , how much do you give up to be honest with yourself?

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No, I don't believe in hurting those around you.

In any circumstances, if you can help it, but certainly not in the cause of art (or photography).

It's a very interesting - and difficult - question, how much and when we exploit others in the creative process. Sometimes it's more obvious. Sometimes it's not so easy to define.

Anyone see 'Capote'? I saw it last week at last (on DVD) - have been thinking about that quite a bit....