Making portraits .... your feelings and your procedures.

[Keith]

For me it's the most rewarding type of photography there is bar none so consequently I'm very comfortable with it and am perpetually striving to improve my results.

There's been a portrait in the gallery today that has attracted some interesting and helpful comments and it inspired me to start this thread. LynnB is a great portrait shooter IMO as are many others here so the purpose of this thread is to get into the minds of our good portrait shooters to find out what drives them and how they go about getting the results they want. 🙂

 

[Freakscene]

It's quite easy for me. Get the subject comfortable, then make sure they are comfortable with me. Look at the light. Check the eyes. If the light is bad, move. If the eyes aren't looking, get them to look and look away.

Then get close and click.

I ended up using Leicas to have as little camera between me and my subjects as possible. I typically use a 75 Summicron or Summilux between minimum focus and 1m, often wide open. But this one is with a Nikon FM2n and a Nikkor AiS 85/1.4.

Marty

 

[Maiku]

Keith,

I have no formula or procedure. I just shoot. I do without thinking any more. I enjoy using primes over zooms because a prime fixes my attention on the subject without worrying about adjusting the framing. I enjoy photographing people more than anything else in an informal setting. Studio portraits do not appeal to me. In the moment portraits is where I feel like excel.

What I am looking for in results? Any result that satisfies me.

 

[mfogiel]

There is no single recipe Keith. There are some things, which I like though:
- lively eyes, this means ideally shooting in the open shade with your subject looking at something big and bright ( sky, big window). The eyes should be alive, have a glossy sparkle to them
- some basic geometry for the body, to avoid amorphous impression
- unless you really want to make it static, you need some tension: twist in the body, kink of the neck, oblique profile, shoulder line at an angle with the chin line
- unless you are assigning equal importance to the surrounding, you need some background separation
- you don't want distracting high contrast elements in the background or ugly bokeh

MF20150503 by marek fogiel, on Flickr

MF20146808 by marek fogiel, on Flickr

20144106 by marek fogiel, on Flickr

First two shot on Contax 645, last one on Leica R4s I believe.

 

[mdarnton]

Keith, is there a reason you aren't pointing us to the photo that starts this whole discussion
for you???????? If it's the one I think it is, perhaps rather than being about portraits, this
discussion should be about how pictures of women on photo sites attract attention and
comments (comments supposedly about the photography) in proportion to their youth,
attractiveness, and lack of clothing, regardless of the quality of the photography. You need
only look under the photos in the gallery to see number of views to see what's going on
there. If, for instance, Winogrand had been shooting mainly old men, he would be a virtual
unknown, because his photos are in very large proportion, frankly, crap that appeal to the
absolute worst in men. (Fighting words, there!)

I have always shot only people, nothing else, on 35mm, mostly Leicas, but in the last year,
looking for a different mode, have been doing almost entirely large format studio portraits.
It's been interesting because where before I grabbed shots, now I'm building them. My specific
impetus for the change was Steichen's fashion photography from the 20s and 30s. Nearly
100% of my work is of people I know, because the whole point for me is to accurately
portray people as individuals, not bushwhacking strangers to use them as props.


Before, 35mm available light:



Andres, thinking
by Michael Darnton, on Flickr


After, 8x10 studio:



Michel S
by Michael Darnton, on Flickr


I haven't found either method to be more "authentic"; they're just different. In both cases what
I try to do is make portraits that viewers look at and say something like "That is him, EXACTLY!"


.

 

[lynnb]

That's very kind of you Keith, but in all honesty I like your portraiture work better than mine. I think I might have said that before.

Whenever I set out to make a portrait the number one consideration for me is to make a personal connection with the subject. I want them to feel relaxed enough to drop the social masks and show the real person. I try to be as casual and friendly as possible to give them emotional space for that to happen. Of course I'm also thinking about the light and all the other things that go into making a photograph but it's getting trust and a connection and getting them comfortable enough to look honestly at my lens that matters most. Good light is next on the list.

It's trite to say the eyes are the window to the soul but it's true. I enjoy looking into people's eyes and building enough trust to see them look right back into my lens. Once that connection happens I'm fairly confident I'll be able to make a decent portrait.

I also agree about how rewarding it can be. There's nothing like it when everything comes together. It feels great when a subject is really happy with what you've done. I always tell them it was a joint effort, which is the truth.

Edit: I've added a few photos:

I met this young woman on a walking track and decided I'd like a portrait. Taken within a minute of our first meeting. Summar 5cm f2:

A more formal study outdoors in natural light. We spent about 15mins making portraits. I chose a location where late afternoon light bounces off a lagoon, and there is dark foliage that can be thrown OOF in the background. 100mm lens @f4

Indoors with natural light from a high window. From a family portrait session. 35mm lens.

my good friend Peter, natural light, taken with a Summar 5cm f2

by lynnb on Flickr

 

[rhl-oregon]

If you spend your life looking at portraits, you learn there are a hundred roads to Rome, a thousand ways to traverse them. What works for Caravaggio doesn't work for Cassatt or Close; what works for Kasebier doesn't work for Parr. But beneath the surface differences and tonalities, shifts in technology and taste and scale, the ideological claims and counter-claims, there is a mortal face. That's what interests me, whether it's a mask or an unveiling, whether the gestures are studied or sudden/unexpected.

I'm thinking of the passage in Barthes's Camera Lucida where he (finally) breaks his own heart in studying Gardner's portrait of 21 year old Lewis Payne, one of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and realizing "He is dead--and he is going to die."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Powell_(conspirator)#/media/File:Lewis_Payne.jpg

Though this doesn't have to be the case (or in Barthes-speak, the studium or punctum) for all portraits, what I want in making portraits is the mystery of mortal presence. To show someone aware that the past and future exist elsewhere, or are nowhere to be found; to represent wonder and doubt (as I commented about in Maiku's portrait earlier today) about the embodied passages of time.

This is a cultural anthropologist, well known in her field, seated at my dining table. In her 70s, still full of youth, imagination, laughter, a good writer and companion. But not growing younger; no more than I am. Behind her are shelves full of books, including hers, shadows into which she is receding. And though she's lit by morning sun, she holds herself as though preparing for something difficult to say or to hear.

I made a number of images of her in a few minutes, and this (surprise) was not her favorite. But it is not for her. Not all portraits are made for the sitter. Some portraits are made to outlive the sitter and maker and keep posing their question about the mystery of time, the body, the soul. As with Rilke's poem about the torso of Apollo, the portrait is meant to see you, to make you change your life. Or as Antonio Machado put it, the eye is not an eye because you see it, but because it sees you.

Portraits as personal gifts, homages, biographical milestones, made for the sitter--that's one way to make them and think of them. Surfaces can beguile and charm and lull us. I like surfaces that mask depths in which drowning is possible. However it can be done technically is permissible.

 

[Keith]

Keith, is there a reason you aren't pointing us to the photo that starts this whole discussion
for you???????? If it's the one I think it is, perhaps rather than being about portraits, this
discussion should be about how pictures of women on photo sites attract attention and
comments (comments supposedly about the photography) in proportion to their youth,
attractiveness, and lack of clothing, regardless of the quality of the photography. You need
only look under the photos in the gallery to see number of views to see what's going on
there. If, for instance, Winogrand had been shooting mainly old men, he would be a virtual
unknown, because his photos are in very large proportion, frankly, crap that appeal to the
absolute worst in men. (Fighting words, there!)

I have always shot only people, nothing else, on 35mm, mostly Leicas, but in the last year,
looking for a different mode, have been doing almost entirely large format studio portraits.
It's been interesting because where before I grabbed shots, now I'm building them. My specific
impetus for the change was Steichen's fashion photography from the 20s and 30s. Nearly
100% of my work is of people I know, because the whole point for me is to accurately
portray people as individuals, not bushwhacking strangers to use them as props.


Before, 35mm available light:



Andres, thinking
by Michael Darnton, on Flickr


After, 8x10 studio:



Michel S
by Michael Darnton, on Flickr


I haven't found either method to be more "authentic"; they're just different. In both cases what
I try to do is make portraits that viewers look at and say something like "That is him, EXACTLY!"


.

There was nothing really specific about the photo I referenced ... it just made me think that a thread like this might be interesting for people who would like to shoot portraits but struggle with it as a process.

For the sake of information this was the example I was referring to.

One of the things that I really like about taking someone's portrait is the connection you develop with them during the process. I've always felt that this was what gives Jane Bown's portraits such an intimate feel ... you can sense the connection between her and her subject.

 

[Black]

Looking to getting (back) into arranged portraits again, so, whilst I don't have a definitive answer for you today (only ideas of what I should be prioritising) I'll look to readdressing this thread again in a years time to share my findings 😀

 

[Keith]

Looking to getting (back) into arranged portraits again, so, whilst I don't have a definitive answer for you today (only ideas of what I should be prioritising) I'll look to readdressing this thread again in a years time to share my findings 😀

No rush .... but keep in mind that none of us are getting any younger! 😀

 

[raid]

I have been intrigued by taking portrait since my college years. There is something special about taking photos of people around me or people anywhere.

Marek explained well the techniques to get started. The rest depends on the moment at which the image is created.

The eyes have it. Window light is best.

It is now impossible for me to catch Lina and Dana showing affections for each other. They got older.
Having the early portraits of them is precious to me and my wife. I never stage a portrait. It just happens.

 

[astro8]

Raid, that first one is mesmerising.... simply beautiful.

 

[lukitas]

What a wonderful seminar in portraiture this thread is becoming.

What Marek said. It's good to begin with the 'rules'. Look at the old masters : Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Van Dijck down to Kertesz and Avedon and so on.

And then forget all that and just concentrate on the person in front of you. Sometimes they need a little nudge, a little encouragement, often it's better to wait, and it can be good to catch someone unprepared.

My daughter, posed :

Didn't get time to react : he sat down, looked at me, I lifted the camera to the right of my face and snapped as he turned his eyes towards it.

 

[Mackinaw]

I agree that photographing people is the most fun (and challenging).

As for technique, I'm all over the place. I prefer B&W film, but will shoot whatever equipment I have that gives me the effect I'm looking for. This shot was taken on Tri-X with my Rollei 6006. Tuesday I'll be using mainly Impossible Project film when I photograph a local model. I may even use my on-loan M-240. we'll see.

Jim B.

 

[raid]

Raid, that first one is mesmerising.... simply beautiful.

Thank you, Greg.

 

[back alley]

[/url]gangster by joe, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[back alley]

[/url]g1 14-45 coffee and paper by joe, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[back alley]

[/url]01.10.g1.20.fire keeper 2 by joe, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[back alley]

[/url]07.11.10.rd1.40s.tongue by joe, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Keith]

[/url]gangster by joe, on Flickr[/IMG]

Where have you been hiding this one?

Great photo and I love the high contrast. 🙂