What's a good portrait?

Over the next few weeks, I want to explore portrait trends. What are they? Who’s commissioning what portraits for what reasons right now? Where might these trends be leading us? And is there any money in it for me...ahh...I mean us?

Phew! It’s some project! Fortunately, I’ve stumbled onto Conscientious—a web site dedicated to contemporary fine-art photography—and, in particular, an article by Joerg Colberg on ‘What makes a great portrait?’ [http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2008/02/what_makes_a_great_portrait/]

Colberg emailed a large number of photographers (fine art and commercial), as well as photography bloggers, curators, editors and gallerists, to ask them “What makes a good portrait?”

Here’s my edit of what some had to say—under headings that I’ve added to help group their responses. I’m sure we can appreciate most of their explanations for what is a good portrait. So, can anyone add new ones?

In my next post, I hope to compare these with understandings of good portraiture from the past.

PORTRAIT RULES AND THE INTANGIBLE

Timothy Archibald—What makes a great portrait is almost like trying to figure out why it feels good when someone smiles at you or why it is disturbing when someone yells. There are these rules and structures—and then there is this intangible human element. Everyone seems to know how to play by the rules and follow the structures, but as far as the intangible goes, that’s where it all falls apart or comes together—it allows the portrait to sink or swim or really transcend.

Timothy Briner—I have specific ideas of what a good portrait may consist of, but I am often amazed at the portraits I come across that do not abide by any of these rules. Many of these images are truly spectacular. And it further reminds me that good art is made up of many things, and this question can almost never really be answered, at least not with any certainty.

GOOD PORTRAITS ARE ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS MUCH AS THE SITTER

Thomas Broening—I think for a portrait to be great it needs to say more about that maker of the image than the subject.

GOOD PORTRAITS SHARE SECRETS AND EMOTIONS, AND INVOKE EMPATHY

Chris Buck—A great portrait can have beautiful lighting, a curious location and a pleasing composition, but it’s a sense of vulnerability that really makes a picture exciting for me. Vulnerability and awkwardness are access points for the viewer, and a suggestion of real humanity.

David Burnett—In the end, what strikes us is the feel we have for the subject, and not, strictly speaking, how the photographer ‘shot’ it. Do I feel something inside, a reaction which I cannot express? Do I sense a moment of tension, humor, a subtle knowing flutter when I connect with the eyes of the subject. Does he, does she speak to me? Do I want to know more about them?

Joakim Eskildsen—A good portrait for me is something that gives an insight into the portrayed inner universe, reflected via the surroundings and the mood of the light and the person’s mental state. It must somehow also have a secret that you want to take part in or that makes you wonder.

Dylan Vitone—What generally makes a good portrait for me is the subjects gaze in the image. Whether they are looking outwardly at the photographer or turning inward in thought if the person has expression on their face that I can empathize or connect with the emotional state I get sucked in. It does not have to be a overly emotional or intellectual state.

GOOD PORTRAITS CAPTURE TRANSCENDENTAL MOMENTS

Kalpesh Lathigra—For me it is a matter of “what were they thinking the moment the shutter is clicked, both of the subject and the photographer. I want to try to capture at least a moment where my subject transcends the expectation of being photographed and moves from posing to a state of grace. I am not naive enough to think that the subject is not directly interacting with the photographer, but what I say to my subjects “is to focus and concentrate on the most important thing in their life, whether it is a moment of happiness, sadness or indifference to the wider world, just a very personal moment, from there the interpretation of capturing that is down to me.

Amy Stein—The qualities that would make an image stand out to the photographer are the same qualities that would hopefully translate to the viewer. The primary quality being the obvious and cliched quality that makes all good art good; there is a tension in the moment. The tension could be there for any number of reasons: the photographer’s attempt to unsettle the subject with words or actions, the subjects desire to control the situation, a mutual trust that produces a raw and honest exchange, a chilly day, the cold water of a stream, etc. I believe there’s no recipe, no replicable means to these moments. They happen and it’s wonderful.

Bill Sullivan—A good portrait allows the viewer to momentarily step outside his or her own reality giving a glimpse of another. It is an emotional exchange between subject to photographer and ultimately to viewer, momentarily caught somewhere in between, experiencing a moment of visual sensory and curiosity from an immediate feeling of invitation.

GOOD PORTRAITS ARE INSIGHTFUL

Rob Haggart—A great portrait is surprising and insightful for the viewer. The insight comes from learning additional information about the subject beyond what they look like. It can be subtle (expression, body position, bits of context) or it can be dramatic but it should never be obvious. The surprising part can come from making an unlikely context to subject pairing or creating an unexpected situation for the subject to react to.

GOOD PORTRAITS ARE RESPECTFUL AND HAVE GRACE

Bruce Haley—Call me a dinosaur or whatever, but for the most part I like portraits to be engaging, not chilly—and sympathetic, rather than demeaning or cruel. I would say that my preference is for portraiture that imparts dignity as opposed to stripping it away.

GOOD PORTRAITS DON’T HAVE TO CAPTURE THE EYES (OR WINDOW ON THE SOUL)

Bill Hunt—I have collected many hundreds of images of people in which the eyes are obscured. They can be closed or veiled or hidden. The photograph must also have a magical impact on me. With the collection, I have always been fascinated by what happens when the photographer does not attempt to capture some poor soul, literally through their eyes, but by denying that or by offering parts, not the whole. I am engaged when information is withheld. When the artist insists that I collaborate on the meaning or significance or power of a photograph, when I am brought into the work, it behaves much more powerfully. My overall take on portraiture is its overwhelming failure to transcend its basic information gathering, to offer more than the most superficial report, the well lit ID photo. How rare and surprising to find the powerful and transcendent.

Olivier Laude—I’ll have to admit that I am not a big fan of portraits as a whole. They are over valued as works of art or as general gallery and magazine fodder. Portraits usually feel staged and temporal, because they are, by their nature meant to be illustrative and propagandistic. The myth that the portrait, the good ones, the bad ones and everything in between, are an important and enlightening window into the soul of the sitter is just as much of an insipid cliché as the soul itself.

In a vacuum, what makes a portrait interesting and successful is the subjectivity of the photographer towards his or her subject. The idea that a great portrait can, and should capture the essence of a human being, is as absurd and deifying as to ascribe god like qualities to any human being, photographer or subject alike.

Portraits for the most part describe an edited moment within a window of personal and theatrical opportunity. Nevertheless, there is a style of portraiture which comes close to achieving the portrait’s mythological goals and that would be the vernacular portrait. Those images taken without pretensions and with minimal expectations on the photographer’s and the subject’s part. These kinds of images are very rare and only seen when you see them.

GOOD PORTRAITS NEED SOME S&M

Brian Ulrich—I’ve come to the conclusion that photographic portraits are some of the hardest photographs to make. In many respects the photographer is the lead in a crazed power dynamic; the sitter must lend themselves, their time, patience and likeness to the photographer in a relationship that has to have some degree of trust in how the photographer might represent them. The photographer, in some cases knowing more or less about the subject, has a opportunity to describe them in a number of ways. All this often leads to the eternal portrait question: From the sitter, “What do you want me to do?”.