Complexities of a portrait

11May11

I have photographed Kris for what seems like forever. The best photos I get of him are at the end of our sessions when he drops his persona and becomes him self for a moment.

Who can deny that we all want to put our best foot forward and be seen as we want others to see us?

Portrait photography, is really a practice of psychology rather than technical knowhow. If your subject is not revealing something, no amount of editing, or cool lighting, can bring life to your subject.

So what do you do? How do you inspire your subject to share themselves? That’s what I get asked often. My answer is that I really don’t know?

This is one of my favorite portraits to remember. Jeremy kept emailing on his Blackberry any time I'd make adjustments or check focus. It almost got annoying. I said, hey, lets take a few with your Blackberry. His face lit up, his eyes opened and a whole different person emerged. His wife calls this photo the most honest photo of him she has seen. It's fun!

With each portrait shoot I tell myself I photograph people, not titles. That’s really my portrait philosophy. Portrait environment does help exploit some aspect of the individual, but portraits are more about people and not the settings. I believe at some point, on some level, we are all people. Regardless of what our title is or what our socioeconomic status is or who we believe to be, we want to be seen as people. When given an opportunity, I believe our preferred way of communicating with one another is as people, not as titles.

Without sounding redundant each person is different in any way you can imagine. The common thread I believe between Presidents and CEOs, Executives and Rock Stars, Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, Athletes and well, you get the idea, is that they are all people. Any such professionals are people first and their title maybe second, third or forth. That’s what my focus always is when creating a portrait.

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