The Portrait

Portraiture is a difficult discipline. One element of the discipline that I find interesting is the role of the artist in the photographic portrait. In classical portraiture, the role of the artist is clear. A subject poses for the painter, attired in a costume that befits his rank or station. To the left, General Cornwallis appears in his military regalia, standing with the confidence of a man with the known world as his responsibility. The traces of the miltary world visible off to his distant left suggest a man undaunted by the duties that his station requires.

It is not hard to infer that the artist is, to a greater or lesser degree, reflecting the ego of the subject. Indeed, portraits like this were commissioned works, and the aim of many portrait artists was clearly to flatter and affirm their wealthy, powerful employers.


Now, of course, portraiture is simple, right? A person with a few basic tools - a camera, a spare moment or gathering, a friend -- snaps a photograph that captures the subject exactly as she is. The photographer is invisible, part of the machinery that captures and translates the replica image of the subject to paper, freezing forever a literal facsimile of a living person.

On the flip side of the coin live the professional photographers, pumping out portraits in the style of the artists of antiquity. Backdrops, careful costuming, socially affirming poses and arrangements, the portrait photographer fulfills the same role that the classical painter played.


It is easy to dismiss the professional as a purveyor of the artificial, a stage magician. His products are illusions. How many happy families are frozen on Kodak 8x10 that live hellish, fractured lives?

But are amateur efforts, "candid" flashes of truth, free of the photographer?

And if they are, are they portraits?

I think that a portrait needs to capture some essential element of the subject. There is a distinction between a snapshot, for example, and a portrait. That is not to say that a snapshot cannot stand as a portrait, but the observation that it does requires some application of the artist's eye. That moment of observation, of selection, is enough to fully incorporate the artist into the process of the photograph, eliminating the narrow claim to invisible neutrality.



from top to bottom: General Cornwallis by JS Copley, Christopher Tully-Doyle, Ryan Cheley, Dennis Doyle