What Makes a Great Portrait?
What Makes a Great Portrait?
Recently I was involved in a discussion about what constitutes a great portrait. This is not the first time that I have had this discussion and like every other time; I found it a hard question to answer. There are a multiple thousands of portraits made each and every year, some of them are even good, most are crap and very few would be considered great.
We all know that a portrait is a representation or likeness of a person and it usually includes the face. A portrait can be a sculpture, painting, mosaic and etcetera, but for this discussion, I am talking about the photographic portrait. We have all made portraits and we have all had portraits made of ourselves. They need not be formal; an every-day snapshot is probably the most common kind of portrait created.
But, what makes a great portrait? There are two quotes that have forever been burned into my memory from the first time I read them as a struggling portraitist. It may not be coincidence that these two photographers between them have also created three of my favorite portraits; Karsh’s photo of Churchill and Newman’s portraits of Alfried Krupp and Igor Stavinsky.
Yousuf Karsh: “It should be the aim of every photographer to make a single exposure that shows everything about the subject.”
Arnold Newman: “I am convinced that any photographic attempt to show the complete man is nonsense. We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals. The inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even the man himself.”
The quote by Karsh was the first one that I read and I thought to myself – That’s what I am doing wrong, I am not showing everything there is to show about the subject. If Yousuf Karsh says that is what I should be doing then it must be true.
And I continued to struggle.
No matter how hard I tried I could not figure out how to show all of the obvious things about my sitters let alone the secrets that they held. Always being a student of human behavior and a prolific people watcher I soon began to realize that there was no possible way to truly “know” my subjects, primarily because they did not know themselves.
I feel that most people do not know themselves and no matter how long and how close you are to somebody, even the ones that you love, you never really know them. Look at the people closest to Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader, they had no idea that these men were serial killers. You can never fully know everything about a person. I realized this early but I still wanted to know how to make a great portrait.
I soon discovered that a photograph, while it may be factual, is no where near being the truth. The instant that you select this or that lens, shoot from this or that perspective, choose this or that ISO and process the image this or that way you have created an illusion of the truth and that should never be mistaken for the actual truth. Could it be honest? Possibly, but it will never be true.
Then I read the quote from Arnold Newman and almost jumped out of my skin. Somebody agrees with me, and it’s not just anybody, it’s one of the world’s greatest photographers. He confirmed for me that you cannot show the complete person in what is essentially a fraction of a second. The most you can do is show the person they present to you or better yet, show your interpretation of what they allow you to see of themselves. It is a rare portrait that shows more.
Why such differing, totally polar, opinions from two of the world’s greatest image makers? Human nature perhaps. Conceit or vanity on the part of one of these men is also a possibility. One thing is certain; the question of what makes a great portrait cannot be easily answered, photographs are too subjective for the answer to ever be definitive.
It is my opinion that a great portrait possesses many intangibles, it transcends and it is metaphor. It is the things that you can’t see and the questions that are raised that you can’t answer that make a great portrait. It might very well be these non-answers that allow us to attribute what ever we wish to these images thus making them personal.
The great portrait may be nostalgic and carry us back to what we consider were better days or it may be hope and assure us that better times are ahead. The great portrait can be pure fantasy and let us escape to a world that we know will never exist or it may be vulnerable and allow us to understand that is okay to be who we are. A great portrait will almost always create the illusion that you are using most of your senses to interpret it, not just your sense of sight.
A good portrait may reach beyond being a mere image and deeply touch the emotions and psyche of a few viewers (maybe only the artist and the subject). The great portrait will do the same with a multitude of viewers. The viewers may not be moved in the same ways but the great portrait will still have an affect on many, it may not be the same affect, that will be dependent upon each individual’s life experience.
So, how do you make a great portrait? We have all seen them so they must be able to be created. I want to make an iconic portrait, tell me how to do it. What’s the formula?
I honestly believe that you cannot deliberately make a great portrait, it just happens.
Recently I was involved in a discussion about what constitutes a great portrait. This is not the first time that I have had this discussion and like every other time; I found it a hard question to answer. There are a multiple thousands of portraits made each and every year, some of them are even good, most are crap and very few would be considered great.
We all know that a portrait is a representation or likeness of a person and it usually includes the face. A portrait can be a sculpture, painting, mosaic and etcetera, but for this discussion, I am talking about the photographic portrait. We have all made portraits and we have all had portraits made of ourselves. They need not be formal; an every-day snapshot is probably the most common kind of portrait created.
But, what makes a great portrait? There are two quotes that have forever been burned into my memory from the first time I read them as a struggling portraitist. It may not be coincidence that these two photographers between them have also created three of my favorite portraits; Karsh’s photo of Churchill and Newman’s portraits of Alfried Krupp and Igor Stavinsky.
Yousuf Karsh: “It should be the aim of every photographer to make a single exposure that shows everything about the subject.”
Arnold Newman: “I am convinced that any photographic attempt to show the complete man is nonsense. We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals. The inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even the man himself.”
The quote by Karsh was the first one that I read and I thought to myself – That’s what I am doing wrong, I am not showing everything there is to show about the subject. If Yousuf Karsh says that is what I should be doing then it must be true.
And I continued to struggle.
No matter how hard I tried I could not figure out how to show all of the obvious things about my sitters let alone the secrets that they held. Always being a student of human behavior and a prolific people watcher I soon began to realize that there was no possible way to truly “know” my subjects, primarily because they did not know themselves.
I feel that most people do not know themselves and no matter how long and how close you are to somebody, even the ones that you love, you never really know them. Look at the people closest to Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader, they had no idea that these men were serial killers. You can never fully know everything about a person. I realized this early but I still wanted to know how to make a great portrait.
I soon discovered that a photograph, while it may be factual, is no where near being the truth. The instant that you select this or that lens, shoot from this or that perspective, choose this or that ISO and process the image this or that way you have created an illusion of the truth and that should never be mistaken for the actual truth. Could it be honest? Possibly, but it will never be true.
Then I read the quote from Arnold Newman and almost jumped out of my skin. Somebody agrees with me, and it’s not just anybody, it’s one of the world’s greatest photographers. He confirmed for me that you cannot show the complete person in what is essentially a fraction of a second. The most you can do is show the person they present to you or better yet, show your interpretation of what they allow you to see of themselves. It is a rare portrait that shows more.
Why such differing, totally polar, opinions from two of the world’s greatest image makers? Human nature perhaps. Conceit or vanity on the part of one of these men is also a possibility. One thing is certain; the question of what makes a great portrait cannot be easily answered, photographs are too subjective for the answer to ever be definitive.
It is my opinion that a great portrait possesses many intangibles, it transcends and it is metaphor. It is the things that you can’t see and the questions that are raised that you can’t answer that make a great portrait. It might very well be these non-answers that allow us to attribute what ever we wish to these images thus making them personal.
The great portrait may be nostalgic and carry us back to what we consider were better days or it may be hope and assure us that better times are ahead. The great portrait can be pure fantasy and let us escape to a world that we know will never exist or it may be vulnerable and allow us to understand that is okay to be who we are. A great portrait will almost always create the illusion that you are using most of your senses to interpret it, not just your sense of sight.
A good portrait may reach beyond being a mere image and deeply touch the emotions and psyche of a few viewers (maybe only the artist and the subject). The great portrait will do the same with a multitude of viewers. The viewers may not be moved in the same ways but the great portrait will still have an affect on many, it may not be the same affect, that will be dependent upon each individual’s life experience.
So, how do you make a great portrait? We have all seen them so they must be able to be created. I want to make an iconic portrait, tell me how to do it. What’s the formula?
I honestly believe that you cannot deliberately make a great portrait, it just happens.
