The Portrait
Art Form, Not Format
Not as many photographers load cameras these days as we used to, but we all aim them and shoot pictures. I suppose I get a bang out of describing my pursuit of photographs as hunting for big game — portraits in particular. I get close enough for a good clean shot — for rapport, not just proximity, and bag my quarry with a four-by-five instead of a thirty-aught-six. But I still hang their heads on a wall to admire like trophies.
The memorialization of a deliberate encounter with a human being, in one shot, so to speak, epitomizes the hunt. It is a challenge. When it goes well, it’s because the subject has allowed the photographer to reveal something personal within a two-dimensional frame, a graphically compelling composition embellished with shadow and light. Despite one’s best attempts to prepare in advance, any photoshoot can go sideways and like a MacGyver episode it becomes necessary to solve a cascade of unexpected challenges involving lenses, lights, cameras, props, wardrobe, location, deadlines, weather, temperament. . . Sometimes the big one gets away.ore than illustrations of interesting people or handsome faces, portraiture is about making allusions to character, a human persona. An adept portrait photographer tries to show as much about what someone does, often professionally, as much as who they are personally.
