What makes some portrait photographers standout?

bilsmaron · Nov 1, 2021

I'm reading Susan Sontag book "On Photography" and looking at the works of the artists mentioned in the book like Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol, Arbus photos has something about them that I can't explain, but to my untrained(I'm a new hobbyist that does landscapes mostly) eye some of Andy Warhol portraits look ordinary.

So my question is, what is it that makes some portrait photos or artists stand out?

I would also appreciate any suggestion for a more recent portrait photographers that I can look up their works ?

jeffreyg · Nov 1, 2021

Portrait photographs vary greatly. I think most reflect the photographer more often than the subject. Since you do landscapes check Craig Richards, photographer. He is a superb photographer and master printer that does both portraits and landscapes. I have one of his prints that happens to be a portrait. I also have his books that are landscapes. A number of years ago I had the pleasure of hosting him during a workshop and exhibition he had in Miami. IMOP an effective portrait rests in the relationship between subject and photographer.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

http://www.sculptureandphotography.com/

BrianShaw · Nov 1, 2021

For me the one's who "stand out" are the ones with a proven track record (whatever that means) and portfolio filled with great portraits. What makes a great portrait is an even better question, perhaps.

Ko.Fe. · Nov 1, 2021

Portraits from DA I'm aware of were not regular portraits. AW portraits? Aren't they all on polaroid?
Are you going to take same kind of portraits? Then dig on Bruce Gilde and lomography principles.

If not, read Jane Bown book, https://www.amazon.ca/Faces-Creative-Process-Behind-Portraits/dp/1855858657
Read how Yousuf Karsh was preparing to take portraits. And watch how Annie Leibowitz was taking them.

In the very short, in addition to light and else technicalities, you have to have person to be engaged, open.
Good portraits always have this. How to get this is not the same way always.
It could be how HCB took some of his for Inner Silence or how Mike Disfamer was doing it in kind of similar way.

radiant · Nov 1, 2021

Portraits are mostly or completely valued by the subject. If you have beautiful subject it is really hard to make bad portrait.

Pieter12 · Nov 1, 2021

There are so many factors that go into making a portrait, including the expectations of both the photographer and the subject. Technique, lighting, setting. There are candid portraits, formal portraits, environmental portraits. Editorial portraits and advertising or publicity portraits. So many styles, from Diane Arbus to August Sander. Karsh, Avedon, Penn, Shoeller, Platon. Chuck Close, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Mark Seliger, Duane Michaels, and on and on. Some is lighting, some the engagement with the subject or total non-engagement like Avedon's "In The American West" portraits. Go to a good photo bookstore or a library and study the books there.

removed account4 · Nov 1, 2021

I can't really give you any names people have left out except for John Garo and NADAR ..

Moose22 · Nov 1, 2021

vedostuu said:
Portraits are mostly or completely valued by the subject. If you have beautiful subject it is really hard to make bad portrait.

Oh, I bet I could do it.

Sirius Glass · Nov 1, 2021

What makes some portrait photographers stand out? Their portraits. Next question?

BrianShaw · Nov 1, 2021

Moose22 said:
Oh, I bet I could do it.

Ha ha… I beat you to it. I’ve made several really bad portraits already!

Pieter12 · Nov 1, 2021

The tough part of portrait photography for me today is people tend to put on their "selfie" faces. You need to get them to drop the façade and try to capture some of the person beneath. But its is all still surface. You can't get any deeper, but you can get a more natural portrait.

Alex Benjamin · Nov 1, 2021

Pieter12 said:
Technique, lighting, setting.

This, essentially, to which you add the ability to engage with the subject, to get to understand enough of the person to have he or she reveal something of him or herself, and to be aware when an facial expression appears that is interesting and revealing.

@Pieter12 : I agree with all you said, but not sure where you got the idea that Avedon's In the American West was a case of non-engagement. Laura Wilson's excellent Avedon at Work in the American West tells the opposite, and there are quite a few photos she took that shows him talking with the subjects. He got to know some of their stories pretty well, including the tragic one of Richard Garber. It's true that Avedon was interested in faces first and foremost - very specific faces, it turns out: "I'm looking for people who are surprising - heartbreaking - or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself," he stated -, but he understood that to get to the face, he had to get to the person.

Pieter12 · Nov 1, 2021

Alex Benjamin said:
This, essentially, to which you add the ability to engage with the subject, to get to understand enough of the person to have he or she reveal something of him or herself, and to be aware when an facial expression appears that is interesting and revealing.

@Pieter12 : I agree with all you said, but not sure where you got the idea that Avedon's In the American West was a case of non-engagement. Laura Wilson's excellent Avedon at Work in the American West tells the opposite, and there are quite a few photos she took that shows him talking with the subjects. He got to know some of their stories pretty well, including the tragic one of Richard Garber. It's true that Avedon was interested in faces first and foremost - very specific faces, it turns out: "I'm looking for people who are surprising - heartbreaking - or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself," he stated -, but he understood that to get to the face, he had to get to the person.

If I remember correctly, in the same book Laura Wilson describes Avedon when he was shooting, just staring at the subject, silent, until he saw something. His engagement may have been before and after the actual shooting. I know he returned to some of the sites he shot at and showed the subjects their photos, and even visited with some of them after the exhibition.

Alex Benjamin · Nov 1, 2021

Pieter12 said:
If I remember correctly, in the same book Laura Wilson describes Avedon when he was shooting, just staring at the subject, silent, until he saw something. His engagement may have been before and after the actual shooting. I know he returned to some of the sites he shot at and showed the subjects their photos, and even visited with some of them after the exhibition.

Yes. She does describe that moment beautifully : "...once it was focused, he was free to move to the front of the camera to face his subject directly. Nothing was between them, This permitted him the intimacy of eye-to-eye contact... The speed and tension that Avedon brought to a session transferred to the subject, concentrating the energy and compression the space between them, This shared territory of intimacy allowed Avedon to see the slightest change of expression, to sense any shift of mood, to whisper encouragement and direction to his subject. The photograph became a collaboration."

When you read about great portrait photographers, that idea of the portrait being a collaboration comes quite often. There has to be in the photographer a desire to understand and in the subject a desire to be understood.

Pieter12 · Nov 1, 2021

On technique, I find that photographers using large format cameras can get a different look to their portraits because the photographer is not hidden behind the camera, instead is standing next to it and more directly engaged with the subject. This can happen also with a medium format camera and waist-level finder, the photographer is not hidden and can even look up and face the subject once everything is composed, looking for the best expression.

John Bragg · Nov 1, 2021

As said above, Jane Bown is a great inspiration. She worked very quickly with minimal equipment and had her photos before the subject had time to get bored. Another of my favorite women photographers is Magnum Photos Eve Arnold.
What made them both stand out was their stripping away all unnescessary wizzbangs and complications and a complete mastery of natural light. That and a kind way of photographing their subjects with dignity intact.

bilsmaron · Nov 2, 2021

bilsmaron said:
I'm reading Susan Sontag book "On Photography" and looking at the works of the artists mentioned in the book like Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol, Arbus photos has something about them that I can't explain, but to my untrained(I'm a new hobbyist that https://9apps.ooo/ does landscapes mostly) eye some of Andy Warhol portraits look ordinary.

So my question is, what is it that makes some portrait photos or artists stand out?

I would also appreciate any suggestion for a more recent portrait photographers that I can look up their works ?

issue got solved!!

warden · Nov 2, 2021

bilsmaron said:
I'm reading Susan Sontag book "On Photography" and looking at the works of the artists mentioned in the book like Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol, Arbus photos has something about them that I can't explain, but to my untrained(I'm a new hobbyist that does landscapes mostly) eye some of Andy Warhol portraits look ordinary.

So my question is, what is it that makes some portrait photos or artists stand out?

I would also appreciate any suggestion for a more recent portrait photographers that I can look up their works ?

Arnold Newman is not recent, but I think careful examination of his portraiture will answer your question about what makes certain portraits or artists stand out. Enjoy.

https://arnoldnewman.com/portraits.html

removed account4 · Nov 2, 2021

I just remembered William Coupon .. he's a NYC photographer, who is still doing work and making great portraits.
He used to have a video on his site or stills of him doing his work, very simple approach did time magazine covers of presidents &c...
the Platon movie / video is a great way of seeing how he works.

Pieter12 · Nov 2, 2021

warden said:
Arnold Newman is not recent, but I think careful examination of his portraiture will answer your question about what makes certain portraits or artists stand out. Enjoy.

https://arnoldnewman.com/portraits.html

Another good book on Newman: Arnold Newman At Work
https://www.amazon.com/Arnold-Newman-Ransom-Center-Photography/dp/0292744919

warden · Nov 2, 2021

Pieter12 said:
Another good book on Newman: Arnold Newman At Work
https://www.amazon.com/Arnold-Newman-Ransom-Center-Photography/dp/0292744919

No more books! The library is full! Shoo!

;-)

MurrayMinchin · Nov 2, 2021

jeffreyg said:
...Since you do landscapes check Craig Richards, photographer...

I think that's the first time I've seen someone else mention Craig Richards.

Decades ago I saw some duotone reproduction greeting cards at a shop in Banff. They were the best reproductions I'd ever seen, anywhere, including books. Found out that he worked at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, so went there and tried to see him. The staff were protective, saying he wasn't available, but I asked enough questions that showed I knew my way around a darkroom and they fetched him from the back.

He rocked my world by saying he used Ilford Multigrade FB papers...my impression of multigrade at the time was not very good, as it was based on working in a newspaper darkroom years earlier, when the stuff was crap. Obviously multigrade papers had improved, because his prints were amazing.

http://www.craigrichardsphotography.com

Maris · Nov 2, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
What makes some portrait photographers stand out? Their portraits. Next question?

Yes, true, but it helps if the portrait subjects are high profile people, well known controversial or notorious people, politicians, and applauded figures from the entertainment and fashion industries.
Once the people in the portraits are acclaimed the portrait photographer will end up being acclaimed too.
Getting started can't be easy and I suspect it is not a smooth path to fame, relentlessly chatting up celebrities to come willingly before the camera, but a solid portfolio of past successes can definitely reinforce the "famous portrait photographer" profile.

jeffreyg · Nov 2, 2021

As Murray mentioned above my introduction to Craig Richards was similar. We were in the Whyte Museum and I saw a calendar with his photographs. Although most of the year had passed, i bought it for the photographs. The person at the gift shop said they also had a book which I also bought. When told he was the resident photographer I asked if I could have it signed. He would be in the next day and I could pick it up then. When I came back I met him and we went down to his darkroom. We invited Craig to stay with us and arranged an exhibition and workshop in Miami (1997).
Other than his portrait of Sir Edmund Hillary and other famous mountain climbers who I would not know, his portraits from Guatemala and Uganda are of people of the areas. The actual prints are amazing and as good as they look on his website it's nothing like the real thing. Definitely worth spending some time on his website.

http://www.craigrichardsphotography.com

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/
http://www.sculptureandphotography.com/

hoffy · Nov 3, 2021

What is the modern definition of a portrait? Because if I look on current social media platforms, it appears portraiture only consists of pretty young ladies in various states of undress....

Anyhow, disregarding that, from what I have observed is the best portrait photographers know how to engage and communicate with their subjects, or they have a story to tell. You could be a master lighting technician, but if you can't evoke an emotion from your subject, you'll get nothing.

As for current favourites, if I look in my insta feed, I've always liked Tariq Tarey. I also like what Ljportraits (Leon Johnson) creates, but he's probably too digital for this audience

What makes some portrait photographers standout?

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