Conceptual Portraiture

NSFW Part of a longterm personal project

While the particulars of this project may not be everyone’s cup of tea there are a few things I’ve learned going down the road on this personal project that may be of interest no matter what particular context the portraits you may make. One of the big reasons for personal projects is to do things you don’t get a chance to do day to day. To explore and experiment with things you’ve thought about or observed while making other pictures, to learn new things, to get out of your own box.

The Why Of It

Here’s the crux of where the notion of personal comes in. That’s a long and laborious thought process I’ve thought about and re-though many times since I started this particular set of personal projects. A random list of things that interest me might serve better than anything else.

• Human beings interest me. Reactions, expressions, emotions, body language, all of it.
• The notion of what exactly is a portrait interests me along with thinking about all of the modes, modifiers, and diversity within that genre label. One way or another I look at all photographs of people as a portrait of one sort or another.
• Dichotomies and contrasts interest me. Opposites, dissonance and harmony interests me.
• Complexity of subject, relationships, geometry, composition, interests me.
• Complexity of technical process does not interest me at all.
• Social commentary interests me.
• The complexity of humanity and the human condition interests me.

This particular group of personal projects is a vehicle for my own exploration of that and all of the immense variables contained. Letting go of control of many things that in the past I’ve worked long and hard to exert control over and at the same time using observations I’ve made to influence other variables in a different way.

Experimentation & Casting Aside Common Wisdom

What are some things when discussing that genre label of portraits that come to mind? What is one after in the making of a portrait and how does one get there? The list may be miles long and probably contains a lot of diverse things, some even contradictory depending on who’s making a portrait of who for what purpose. I’ll just chuck a couple of points heard quite a over and over out there as well as typical advice or common wisdoms.

How about “moments”, that’s one many portrait photographers talk about and one way or another are after. Way back in the era when kids portraits at department stores were a common way to get things done what was the camera operator after with all the goofy shit and props? Some sort of human moment one way or another. Isn’t that what differentiates the good portraits from the bad ones if there is such a measurement? Real moments being better than fake ones, or obviously fake ones, right?

How about another modifier, lets say candid? That’s a good one and typically used to define how something looks as well as a process used to make photos that don’t always go together. Cameras and photography are really good at this in a way other mediums aren’t. In many ways it’s part of that photographic magic and so difficult to get at in many cases. What is a common thought process on getting to those moments and getting to “candid”?

Candid: unposed, informal, uncontrived, impromptu, natural. Also: open, honest, truthful, sincere

I would say the vast majority of portrait photographers no matter what process or how formally approached are looking for at least one of those words used in the definition of candid. There’s subtle distinctions between many of those words to be sure. The common wisdom suggests the best approach to getting to one of these descriptions as within a portrait is to make the “subject” comfortable. I hate that word “subject”. I much prefer collaborator which it most certainly is when there’s any interaction and intent to make pictures.

Consider the random images contained in this post. I quite literally did exactly the opposite of making Lori comfortable. In fact we decided on a set of circumstances that were about as uncomfortable as she could get. Let’s count the ways.

• L. is not at all comfortable topless. As in most cases that’s rooted in the perception of how she looks rather than anything else. I knew this from working with her in the past on something completely different.
• L. is relatively tall and the props we chose along with the configuration of them made standing up strait pretty much impossible.
• The props themselves are a bit on the uncomfortable side. Actually a lot, especially the steel bottoms.
• Last but not least L. is wearing six inch heals. Obviously out of frame.

Candid? Absolutely, candid moments, some relaxed, some apprehensive, some a bit of both. Portraits — yes. Conceptual — sure, i’ll leave the concept up to the viewer there’s a bit of room there. Documentary — yep in fact there’s a notion to wrestle with aren’t all photographs documentary to some degree you can put that particular line wherever you want. I tend to draw it somewhere way before composting things together that never actually occurred while being okay with actually having a frame that doesn’t include a 360-degree view. Social commentary doing my damnedest. Figure study — yes. Dichotomy and contradictions, yes subtle ones here and there along with some dissonance/consonance I was looking for. So which particular genre label and modifiers should we choose. I would submit to you that all of those genre labels are for consumers of photographs and convenient classifications for us humans that love to put things in neat little boxes rather than for producers of photographs. Too bad I see it driven mostly the other way now based on appealing to a market of one sort or another. In other words the labels on a box driving what one makes so that it fits ever so perfectly in the intended box.

End Notes

I made these a little while before committing to the Fuji X-Series cameras for a minimum of six months. Made with a Nikon Df and 28mm Non-AI from 1971 and a Nikon D600 with 50mm f/1.4G. Processing via Lightroom with some random B&W preset of mine applied on import. Probably one of my own recipes.

A preemptive answer to the inevitable question of the above mentioned Nikon cameras compared to my Fuji X gear I currently use. Yes I like my Fuji X cameras and system better than my Nikon system as a whole mostly due to size and sound. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be using it as my only small camera system not only for this random group of off-kilter projects but everything else as well. Specifically my Nikons did nothing substantially better, were much larger, not nearly as quiet, and I really do like the Fuji X lens line-up far better for my purposes than the current Nikon line-up.