The camera can photograph thought. ~ Dirk Bogarde

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.~ Dorothea Lange

I thought I should take this opportunity to share a little about my plans and what I hope to achieve here on these pages. I considered using something like “eople-only” as my name here. That would have been fitting because that is what I intend this work to be about,
people.

I have been studying the art of portraiture as performed with a camera. Certainly I’m not of the opinion it is a viable career path to start down at my age. I could be wrong of course, but its’ not likely. My original idea was that I maybe could earn enough to help pay for the nasty gear habit I seem to have developed since I started hanging around you people. I’m not sure though I could do even that. The more I read and think and discuss these subjects though the more they have become a personal challenge to me.

Note that I said “these subjects”, plural. Portraiture and street are two different things. A few months ago I thought street was any image made on or of a street. I really had no idea what…. well just no idea. (I feel so embarrassed) Not really, turns out a whole bunch of people don’t understand exactly what comprises the category “Street”. More about that later, right now let's concentrate on the art of the portrait.

I think that a good portrait is so much more than just a likeness of a person. Richard Avedon said, “A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”
Avedon was an artist and arguably the greatest portrait photographer in his lifetime, some would argue that point and use the word ever. I’m not one of them, but I do think he was “one” of the greatest. There is no doubt in my mind that he definitely understood what a photographic portrait is capable of being and how to arrive at that point.

Avedon claimed that, “A portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture. The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in someone else willing to take part in a fiction he cannot possibly know about.”


At first that sounds a little complicated, but it’s not really, and I think it totally sums up the problem that most people have when producing a good portrait. The photographer and the subject are not at the same place together. Yes, physically they are in the same room or area but not mentally where it counts. That is the difference between a good portrait and a great portrait, showing something more than your subjects face or merely the surface of the physical person.

You cannot show something that is not revealed by the subject or that you never even knew existed. Often times the knowledge they are being photographed causes them to conceal part of themselves. But it IS INSIDE the subject and it is up to us to find it and make that connection.

I think the easiest way would be, of course, to not let them know they are being scrutinized by the lens. That is why I love to shoot candid shots. Of course that removes the use of studio lighting etc from the arsenal of available tools. Candid and studio don’t seem to go together. Well however we accomplish it we must discover exactly what that little thing is and expose it. It doesn’t matter if our subject is 40 years old or only 4. There is usually a way to achieve the goal if we are willing to take the time to do so. I truly believe that, and looking at the work of Avedon, Bresson, and Arbus to name only a few illustrates that point, as do countless artists here on DA. I’m looking and searching them out. If you know any please tell us about them right here in your comments.

That is the type of thing I want to discuss and learn on this site. Your comments and contributions to the discussion are welcome and requested please, dear friends and readers. Here are the first features for this journal.