UKC

Yes I could shove a camera in someone's face and click away, but what makes a good portrait?

In fact, how far can you stretch the concept of a portrait?

In reply to The Lemming:

Lighting is very important.

In reply to The Lemming:

Capturing something of a person's personality. One photographer whose work springs immediately to mind is Jane Bown.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Jane Bown's portrait of Samuel Beckett is one of the best portrait photos I can think of.

I can also remember going to an exhibition of Yousef Karsh portraits, and falling in love with his images of Audrey Hepburn.

Karsh also shows that a portrait doesn't have to be a traditional facial image - he has a portrait of the cellist Pablo Casals, shot from behind so his face isn't visible, but he's playing his cello and the image captures his personality very effectively.

In reply to The Lemming:

+1 Jane Bown and the Beckett portrait - she did a great one of Bjork hiding behind her hands which I like.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Agreed. I should buy one of her monographs

In reply to tony:


The bloke from Quantum Leap?

In reply to The Lemming:

Lighting. Samuel Beckett was a good subject though and a good subject helps.

In reply to gerryneely:

I looked up the story behind the Beckett picture. He knew that she had been sent to get a picture so he tried to escape by a stage door but she anticipated this, caught him and with his permission got just a few frames - one of them being the definitive image. That illustrates why she was so good.

In reply to gerryneely:


as Keith says though, elusive and uncooperative

In reply to The Lemming:

Turn the camera so it's facing you and hold it at an angle above your head. Or failing that, stand in front of a mirror.

In reply to The Lemming:

the eyes, the light the moment?

what about this for a selfie?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128498864@N06/15540044418/

such majestic eyebrows

In reply to The Lemming: Here ye go - http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/11/taylor-wessing-photo-portrait-prize-winne...

In reply to The Lemming:



Can you elaborate on this question please? Given that nobody has addressed it yet, I am guessing that I am not the only person wondering quite what you are getting at here.

In reply to Tall Clare:


If you don't know the subject quite well, can you tell the difference between a picture that genuinely captures someone's personality and one that just conveys a convincing but misleading sense of personality?

I get a similar thing with biography - eg The Villain seems like a good biography in that it gives a fairly coherent and believable account of what made Whillans tick, but for all I know it could be completely unrelated to reality.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


I've been thinking this - especially when I was looking at those pictures of veterans. In old people's faces it is easy to see sadness or 'grit' but it could just be rheumy eyes or wrinkled skin and high contrast that gives that impression.

In reply to Brian:


It's photographs like the 2nd and 3rd placed pictures here that can easily give portrait photography a bad name. The 3rd placed twins, especially. Dull, lifeless and strangely irritating.

Unless that's what she was going for. In which case it's a success.

In reply to The Lemming:

Hadn't heard of Jane Bown. A quick google came up with this...
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2009/oct/18/jane-bown-60-ye...

And it seems I've been admiring her photos for years without knowing who was taking them. The Woody Allen one at the end, for instance.