For this assignment I decided to make a series of portraits of my daughter, Hope, I obviously needed to fulfill the brief of the exercise and show texture, shape, form and colour, but I also wanted to find out how lighting would affect the mood of the portraits.
Portrait photography has a very important place in the history photography as it was its' first great commercial success as the huge popularity of the
carte de visite in the 1850's, where small photographic portraits were used as calling cards, or as collector cards of the great and good.(Badger,G 2007)
It was not until I started to research portrait photography for this assignment that I realized that it was such a complicated and contentious issue. The debate seems to revolve around what should and does a photographic portrait, portray.We have all heard terms like "the eyes are the window to the soul" and that a portrait should capture the character or the secret inner being of the sitter, but David Bailey(1938-) states that "
should you set out to portray ' inner character' in a photographic portrait you will find aim is a will-o'-the-wisp"(Hughes,G 1981). He carries on to say that the best you can hope to achieve is a caricature of the subject and that by close examination of the sitter the photographer should try to exaggerate their prominent features or gestures.This seems a rather shallow approach and seems unlikely to achieve a flattering result. Here we must remember that Bailey is a celebrity portrait photographer so his subjects are well known and so the public have a preconceived perception of them that Bailey has to deliver, they come with a back story. This highlights the two types of portrait, the society and the social, the society relates to the portraits of the aristocracy and high achievers and the social is of the man in the street. If we look at some of the social portraits of the past, such as those of August Sander(1876-1964), Walker Evans(1903-1975) or Paul Strand(1886-1976), we have no idea who the subjects are, we can make assumptions from the attached titles and their clothes and surroundings but we are unlikely to find out their names or backgrounds, we therefore see them as types. If we take Strands' Young Boy,
Gondeville,France 1951 as an example.
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| Young Boy,Gondeville,France 1951 |
We can see from his clothes and surroundings that he probably lives in the countryside, that he possibly works on a farm, so he becomes a type, he is a young French farmhand from the 1950's. Strand is devolved of any responsibility to try to get beyond any surface appearances, to try to get the boy to drop his guard, in fact it is boys' direct, impenetrable gaze which gives the picture its power.( Hoffman, M 1976)
The camera is seen as a very impassive tool, " the camera never lies", so does that mean with these social portraits that the photographer has no effect on the outcome, Strand chose this particular boy, possibly told him to stand in front of the old wooden building, possibly to get out of the sun, maybe for effect. Even with the secret, candid portraits taken by both Strand and Evans, they both still chose their subjects. In Evans' famous series of New York subway pictures he took truly candid pictures of his fellow travelers in an attempt to capture unposed portraits, because it is the pose that which the photographer is trying to strip away, as Roland Barthes(1915-1980) states, "
once I feel myself being observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of "posing," I instantaneously make another body for myself , I transform myself in advance into an image."( Barthes,R 1993)
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| Subway Passengers, New York City, 1938 |
Although Evans has achieved his aim of the completely unposed portrait, the decision was still his as to when the exposure was made, and his preferred type of subject shows very strongly, Evans states himself that "
The secret of photography is that the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler. The mind works on the machine." (Bosworth,P 2005). This problem was finally resolved by Phillip-Lorca diCorca (1953-) in 2000 with his series Heads, the portraits were taken automatically as the unaware subjects passed over a predetermined spot, diCorca says that he was trying to capture individuals rather than types.
Generally when we take a portrait we will try to influence its outcome, even at its most basic who has not been asked to smile for the camera, the problem with this approach is that it reinforces the "pose", how do we get beyond this. The most important thing is that the photographer must maintain control of the situation and then use that control to their advantage, the aim is to get the sitter to drop their public face, I do not think that any of the best portrait photographers would claim to uncover anyones' soul, Irving Penn(1917-2009) wrote "
In portrait photography there is something more profound that we seek inside a person, while being painfully aware that a limitation of our medium is that the inside is record able only insofar as it is apparent on the outside . . . I have at times seduced myself into a mystical belief in the penetrative power of the camera, but reflection always brings me back to accepting the picture process as simply the bounce back of light from a momentary arrangement of atoms that are a face.But that is not to say the power of a tender word, or a clumsy one, to affect those atoms, can be overstated. When light and the situation of the portrait picture are found and the sculptural arrangement made, it may be that the word is after all at the heart of the whole thing . . . Very often what lies behind the facade is rare and wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe." (Keaney,M 2010).
Portraitists have different methods of getting a subject to drop their facade, Penn would make a session last until his sitter was too tired to keep it up, Richard Avedon (1946-2004) would sometimes use the same trick or he would quickly shock his sitters with a few words. He said to the anti-Semitic poet Ezra Pound, "
I think you should know Mr Pound, that I'm Jewish " as he took his pictures, he did something similar to the dog loving Duke and Duchess of Windsor, telling them "
I'm sorry I'm late. My taxi hit a dog." (Lahr,J 2008)
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| Wallis, Duchess of Windsor; Edward Duke of Windsor, 1957 |
As you can see the words had their effect, the royal veneer has been stripped away and we see expressions of concern and angst.
Lastly I want to look at the way Diane Arbus took her portraits , she told one of her students she would "
stop at nothing to get the picture I wanted." and then this from Germaine Greer "
She kept asking me all sorts of personal questions, and I became aware that she would only shoot when my face was showing tension or concern or boredom or annoyance ( and there was plenty of that, let me tell you), . . . It was tyranny. Really tyranny. Diane Arbus ended up straddling me- this frail little person kneeling, keening over my face. I felt completely terrorized by the blasted lens. It was a helluva struggle. Finally I decided. " Damn it, you're not going to do this to me, lady. I'm not going to be photographed like one of your freaks! " So I stiffened my face like a mask. Diane went right on merrily photographing- clickclickclickclick- cajoling me, teasing me, flattering me. This frail rosepetal creature kept at me like a laser beam. . . . It was a battle between us. Who won? It was a draw. After that afternoon I never saw her again. I never saw the photographs either."
All of this bullying and cajoling and wearing down to the point of fatigue, might give us interesting portraits but does it show us the true person, or just a scared, bored or tired person. Or can we never really capture a person in a photograph, will any portrait only ever be as Barthes states ' a likeness of another likeness ad ifinitum '
As I stated earlier I have taken a series of portraits of my daughter to see the effect of different types of lighting.
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| Covered Alley, Side Lighting |
I have taken the portrait above in a covered alleyway, which has given a short lit effect with a nice triangle of light under the nearest eye, which is reminiscent of Rembrandt lighting, named after the old master. The deep chiaroscuro gives good sculpting to the facial features and the side light reveals the texture of the skin, although you do not necessarily texture in a portrait.( Prakel, D 2007)
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| Covered Alley |
By moving Hope to the other side of the alleyway and closer to the entrance, I have achieved broad lighting. Now most of the face is lit, there is still nice gentle modelling to the face, which fits with her age better and because of the more frontal light texture is reduced.
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| Silhouette at the Bus Stop |
This nice crisp silhouette was taken in front of a local bus stop which had had its poster taken out, I had my white balance set to auto and it came out with these lovely blues and greens.This obviously shows Hopes' shape, luckily it does not show the face she was pulling at having to pose in front of a bus stop outside the local shops.
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| In Shade, In Hall just inside front Door |
This is the technique I normally use if I am asked to take a portrait, sitting the subject in the hall with the door open and shooting from outside, keeping them out of direct sunlight, gives a lovely flattering light. I have set the white balance to cloudy to get as much warmth and colour into the picture as possible.
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| Large Window, Gold Reflector |
Here I have stood Hope next to a patio door, which has given quite a strong side light and the I have lowered the contrast across her face by using a gold reflector as an infill. The gold reflector has added some warmth to her skin and lifted the colour in her eye.The side light has provided a good modelling light.
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| Flash Head, Barn Doors, No Diffusion |
In this image I have used a flash head with barn doors and no diffuser aimed at the back of Hopes head to show the texture in her hair, a small light at a low angle should reveal texture, so I have tried to get the light to glance the side of her head.( Hunter,F. Biver,S. Fuqua,P.2007) . I have placed a white reflector facing the light to bounce some light back onto Hopes face.
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| Rim Light, Undiffused flash |
Once again using an undiffused flash head with barn doors to create this rim lit portrait, the light was placed slightly forward and to the side of Hope and the camera lens was flagged to stop flare as the light was pointing almost straight at the camera. This lighting shows a good outline to the face and nice texture in the hair.
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| Single Flash, No Diffuser |
I have used a single flash with no diffuser here to try to recreate the kind of high contrast portraits made by Irving Penn and E.O Hoppe (1878-1972) in the early Twentieth century. The single small light has created real texture on the skin and the deep shadow has created some drama.
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| Facing out 6 feet from patio door |
This is similar to the picture taken in the hall, only Hope here is standing about six feet in from the patio door on a bright sunny day. As you can see the light is quite flat with very little modelling, but it is very flattering, because the light is bouncing in off of the wall it has become a large light, even though the sun itself counts as a small light.
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| Single Flash, Diffuser |
For this portrait I have used a single flash with a soft box fitted, the light is placed about four feet to the right of Hope, angled down at about forty five degrees above her. This set up approximates the normal angle of the sun, this has given a bright, modern feel to picture, with gentle form and not too much texture. Here I have influenced Hope to do something, I mentioned she has a slightly lazy eye and this was her response, I know its
not bearing her soul, but its a start.
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| Smiling |
I have included this last picture just to prove it was not all hard work for Hope, she loves it really.
What I have learnt from this assignment is that portraiture is a very complicated subject and that just when I feel I have grasped all the different arguments and implications there seems to be another twist to throw things back into confusion again, and when I look back at this blog in a few days or weeks time I will think of all the things I meant to say and haven't.
As for lighting portraits, I have so much to learn.
One last picture, this was why Hope was so upset down at the bus stop in front of all the shoppers.
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| Oh the Shame for a Thirteen Year Old |
References:
Badger,G,2007,
The genius of Photography,Quadrille,London.
Hughes,G,1981,
David Baileys Book of Photography,J M Dent & Sons,London.
Barthes,R,1993,
Camera Lucida,Vintage,London.
Bosworth,P,2005,
Diane Arbus A Biography,Vintage,London.
Hoffman,M,1976,
Paul Strand Sixty Years of Photographs,Aperture,New York.
Keaney,M,2010,
Irving Penn Portraits,National Portrait Gallery Publications,London.
Lahr,J,2008,
Performance Richard Avedon,Abrams,New York.
Prakel,D,2007.
Lighting,AVA,Switzerland.
Hunter,F,Biver,S,Fuqua,P,2007,
Light Science & Magic, An Introduction to Photographic Lighting,Focal Press,Oxford.
