examining the portrait

today i read an article by chase jarvis (photographer with a masters degree, perfect!) called 'the dichotomy of the photographic portrait'. his point is this: the nature of art, portraiture in particular, is such that in is nearly impossible to avoid creating a manipulated view of the subject, because of a collaboration that occurs between the subject and the photographer. this manipulation is, says jarvis, almost always a form of advertisement for the individual. he claims that it is nearly impossible for the subject not to react to the camera, just as the photographer inevitably attempts to 'color' the look of his or her subject.

on the one hand, i think this is true. and not only for dedicated photographers doing serious portraiture. the general idea, at least, holds true for point-and-shoots at parties. we all think something when we see a camera, whether it is an intentional smile, or an intentional non-smile. perhaps you are one of those who has a well practiced photo-face. or, you may be camera shy, and cover or hide your face. whatever the case, it seems true that the photographer and the subject almost always collaborate to make some form of advertisement of the individual.

the problem for me is that this line of argument ends in the claim that the essence of the individual cannot be portrayed photographically (or the more difficult, philisophical claim that there is no essence, but that is a digression). certainly i will agree that an essence is very difficult to arrive at, particularly for the professional photographer who meets a subject once, for an hour. in contrast to this, however, is the serious photographer who spends years getting to know his/her subject, and makes prints with the weight of that knowledge in mind. i am thinking of an american photographer named edward sheriff curtis, who spent thirty years getting to know and then photographing tribal native americans (check out the national geographic history of photography). perhaps these different types of portraiture are simply two different shades of grey, but curtis's is without doubt a much closer 'essence' of the individual than we will find in the standard portrait, particularly in today's media.

perhaps candid portraiture is the way of the future.


http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2007/02/dichotomy-of-photographic-portrait.html