Perception in portraits

<p>Perhaps this has been posted already - and if so I will defer to that thread. I found this particularly fascinating as a study of how photographers can layer their perception on portraits. Perhaps a little contrived but an interesting outcome. It is a Canon sponsored project that gave photographers a camera, a subject and a back-story. But for the six photographers the back-story was different in each case.</p>

<p>http://www.shutterbug.com/content/lab-pushes-boundaries-photography-decoy#5T0o6dlUwaJwHoyY.97</p>

<p>I suppose it does raise, for me, the issue of photographs not being "truth", other than what the photographer and viewer consider that to be.</p>

 

<p>For me, this doesn't raise the issue of <em>photographs</em> not being "truth." It raises the question of the back-stories not being true. Now, I don't think photos are or need to be accurate. In other words, these photographs may not show who the subject <em>actually</em> is. But, if the false back-stories influenced the photos, there's "truth" in that. The photos have the ability to show truths within the lie being perpetrated on the photographers. It's not the photos that are lying here. The photographers have been lied to. They are conveying their truths. This is very different from a photographer <em>knowingly</em> creating a false image of someone, which may or may not be objectionable. Photographers, as all artists, are allowed to create fictions. I may create a portrait of someone that tells a different sort of truth than accurately representing who they are. I may tell some human truths or reach some viewers at a place of emotional depth or express something significant in terms of humanity, without individualizing it to the subject before me. The subject of a portrait can be seen by some photographers as a character in a play.</p>

<p>If I am told someone is an ex-con and that person is not an ex-con, I may still convey something very truthful about the human condition, whether or not the story matches up with the particular subject I'm photographing. </p>

<p>Truth, photography, and portrait-making have all kinds of complications and possibilities.</p>

<p>Fiction has the potential to express deeper truths than what accuracy can sometimes accomplish.</p>

<p>I think that's the point, Fred. The photographs tell a story, based on what the photographer believes and as you've pointed out many time, what the viewer sees. I'm not at all bothered that the photographers were lied to - I'm interested in how that story influenced their take on the subject. And my point about "truth" in photographs is that it's ephemeral, at best. I have come to realize that photography does not express an immutable truth - it expresses whatever the photographer wants to show, and what the viewer wants to see.</p>

<p>Yes, to the extent the photographer believes the story he is told then what he does with that information certainly reflects <em>a</em> truth, if not <em>the</em> truth.</p>

<p>I think the more interesting implication is about <em>bias</em>: what happens in all of those cases where the photographer <em>doesn't</em> have a back story on a subject and subconsciously invents one (as we human beings are prone to doing)?</p>

<p>Not that we should draw<em> </em><em>too</em> many conclusions from things like this... these kinds of stunts are (a) non-statistical to begin with, (b) typically set up to achieve a certain result which (surprise!) they achieve, and © buried away from view when they fail to achieve the intended result.</p>

<p>A photographer might dismiss what he's told about a subject and find something compelling in the light and a particular physical feature of the subject and photograph that subject accordingly, disregarding whatever he's <em>told</em> in favor of being led by what he <em>sees</em>. The photographer may not be interested in <em>telling</em> a story or a truth as much as <em>showing</em> an aspect of what's before him.</p>

<p>Since I don't think there are immutable truths to begin with, I agree with you, David, that photography doesn't express immutable truths. Even if I grant that there are immutable truths, I'd still agree that photography doesn't express them. But I wouldn't limit photography to simply showing whatever the photographer wants to show and the viewer wants to see. A camera gets pointed at a world that exists. That world, including the environment, the time of day, the light at the moment, etc. all influence the photo. There are real, existing, objective things from which a photo is made. It's not all subjective in terms of photographer and viewer. As a matter of fact, I think I often wind up showing (or telling) something in my photos that I wasn't even aware was there. My own photos often reveal things to me (about the subjects and about myself) that I wasn't aware of (at least consciously) before I looked at the photo.</p>

<p>It's all relative. Of course, trivially, I can say EVERYTHING is subjective. I see the Statue of Liberty or I see a photo of the Statue of Liberty and I might say there's nothing objective there. It's only what I make of it, what I've read about it, what my perspective is on it. Yet, there's a difference between a photo of the Statue of Liberty and a painting of it (there are also similarities). When I see the photo, I'm aware that the camera was pointed at the actual Statue of Liberty. When I see a painting, I'm in a different relationship to the actual Statue than when I see a photo of it.</p>

<p>In any case, just as a photographer can influence his photo because he has a take on the subject, I believe the subject often fights back and imposes itself in ways the photographer can't or may not want to overcome. So, I think of photos not as truths but as <em>dialogues . . . </em>dialogues among photographers and subjects, subjects and viewers, photographers and viewers, individuals and cultures, photographers and past photographers and artists who've been influential . . .</p>

I think it is important to remember that a portrait of a person is a portrait of a person, not of an (animated) body. Who a person is is not 'defined' (poor word) by how he looks. What we know about him or her (and do not see) is even more important than the physical presence. So these photographers tried to (and succeeded in differing degrees) make a portrait of who (not of what, but of who - or is it of whom?) they had in front of the camera.<br>Nothing really interesting about that, if you'd ask me.<br>And i don't see how truth, or even "the truth", figures in this. Sure, they were told different things about whom they were asked to photograph. So what? They all did the same: make a portrait of whom they though they were asked to photograph, i.e. the physical thing and its background story. If truth has to figure in this story, it could by saying all these portraits are true (assuming that these different (!) sitters were all equally well portrayed). But it - truth - is just a Red Herring.<br><br>(By the way: i don't think it is only trivially true that everything is subjective. Or rather that there is no such thing as 'objective', except as a theoretical term. But that's another discussion.)

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<p>I think it is important to remember that a portrait of a person is a portrait of a person, not of an (animated) body. Who a person is is not 'defined' (poor word) by how he looks. What we know about him or her (and do not see) is even more important than the physical presence.</p>

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<p>To extend the dialogue metaphor, when it comes to photos I don't think the physical and visual are in competition with what we know about the person and I don't think one is more important than the other. I think some photos rely on the looks and the physical in order to make their point, which is often deeper than the physical but doesn't emanate from what we <em>know</em> about the subject. What a person looks like may not be as important in life as who they are and what they do, but a person's physical being, bearing, gestures, and expressions can be key to a good portrait of them. I think photos have the ability to take the world of the physical and the world of looks and give it emotional and psychological significance. And I think many portraits go beyond their individual subjects. What we will sometimes respond to, especially when we don't know the person pictured, is the human condition portrayed (regardless of whether we think it <em>accurately</em> portrays the person shown).<br>

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Richard Avedon: <br>

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<em>"My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues."</em><br>

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<em>"The photographs have a reality for me that the people don't. It's through the photographs that I know them. Maybe it's in the nature of being a photographer."</em><br>

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I don't think these quotes express absolute truths. I think they're worth considering in the big picture of photography.</p>

<p>One too many variables. One subject, several background informations, several photographers. Yes, it would be difficult to have the same subject and different stories with one photographer. One subject, one story, various photographers is a well travelled path of comparison, yet of interest. A subject with no story (anonymous in that sense) would also be on interest and each photographer might then be given a background story and a re-shoot. That might be of more interest in seeing how each photographer's approach would be influenced. Accordingly, the suggested exercise eliminating variables might bonify the comparisons.</p>

<p>Q.G., I also don't want to get into a broader subjectivity/objectivity discussion but do want to clarify what I meant by "trivial" because I think I was a bit quick or inarticulate in making the point. What I meant is that if everything is subjective, then it would be trivial to be saying that photographs are. In other words, if our (subjective) take is what we have on the Statue of Liberty then of course it's also true that our (subjective) take is what we have on photographs of it. So by saying that the photographer and viewer each have our takes on the photo, we're not saying anything different about photography than anything else we could speak about that we see or experience. My main point in questioning the dominant role of "my take" (as photographer or viewer) on a photo is in my last paragraph in that post. And that's my desire not to discount the role of the subject, which I think imposes itself on us just as we impose our takes on it.</p>

In a photo, Fred, yes, the visual is very important. We often do not know the person whose image we are looking at, so no help but the visual clues provided in the photo. So in portrait photography there generally is an attempt to picture the sitter such that the invisible is suggested. A menacing personality must look menacing, a welldoer must be seen as a benign person, etc. On the other hand, when we know the person, there is another thing that is attempted often, it being to show another (then the well-known) side of the person.<br>There is another type of portrait too, in which the identity of the sitter is not part of the subject, it instead trying to picture a generic characteristic of the human, a situation, or even no more than a form. There could be more types of portrait too.<br>As in all photography, the emotion evoked by any (type of) portrait is important. That emotion could be the product of a mere recognition of the portrayed person supplemented by a huge dose of 'background knowledge'. He who mentions the Nazis loses, but just the hint of a block moustache and a lock of hair is already enough to summon a bit and then some more. But had we never had any of that ghastly period go the way it did, and had we never known about that then insignificant Austrian person, the above mentioned schematic portrait would have meant nothing.<br>Sometimes it takes more than just a hint, because not every portrayed person or situation is that recognizable. But i think that we always go beyond, not the individual subject, but the mere visual.<br>And that's why i don't think Avedon's quote is very credible. I think he is being a bit disingeneous. Not below the surface? Strictly true, but only as far as he meant that he doesn't lift the skin off his sitters.<br><br>Re that point about being subjective, i appreciate your explanation and do agree. It works two ways (simultaneously). We, the viewer, imposing what we know about the sitter (even if all we know is what is suggested by the visual clues the photographer provided in the portrait itself) on the portrait is turning a physical presence into a person. That of course presupposes that we do know something about the subject, do understand the vocabulary and what it is trying to convey, recognize a situation and empathise, or are merely 'instinctively' attracted by the form. So yes, the subject is not 'innocent', but does indeed impose itself on us.<br>If it did not, the portrait would not be a portrait, but have no meaning, be a picture of some nothingness.

Arthur, i think that - because there are different stories - there is no single, "one subject". That's where this demonstration of something went wrong: the notion that the person is just the moving bit of flesh and blood. What would be more interesting (well... interesting. I don't really think the experiment as it is is interesting, because of that flaw) would indeed be an anonymous subject and what several photographers make of it. They will all have their own frame of reference, compare a person's physical appearance with whom they know (personally or not. Socio-cultural arche- or stereotypes will also do) and how they feel about those references will show in their approach of that same anonymous subject. They will give the anonymous sitter an identity, and that will produce portraits that are much more a portrait of themselves than of the sitter.

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<p>"Almost looks like six different people"...</p>

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<p>That entire video smacks of slick marketing B.S. Why is the Canon logo bug in the lower right corner of the video? Oh, I just answered my own question.</p>

<p>I've made my own self portrait literally look like six different people but I used a Pentax K100D with a combination of varied lighting, subject distance to lens and focal lengths and cropping to distort proportions in facial features and head size.</p>

<p>6 mediocre portraits of the same person - so what's the big deal?</p>

<p>>>> That entire video smacks of slick marketing B.S.<br>

>>> 6 mediocre portraits of the same person - so what's the big deal?</p>

<p>Yes. Simplistic, contrived, and setup with a heavy reality show element - only missing hugs and tears at the end. I suppose some will really get into it and even be amazed, as the six photographers apparently were.</p>

<p><em>6 mediocre portraits of the same person - so what's the big deal?</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em><br /></em>If you did not know the back stories from the video, and just saw the portraits, would there be that much special about them, and would they look all that different? I re-watched the video a day later, skipping to the end, having forgotten the details of the stories or which one went with which. I don't think I could have told which story went with which picture or why. If you saw a caption for each one, you might see the connection, and one would hope that any photographer would manage to get a little of his presumption about a character into a portrait, but I think much is made of little here. </p>

It also depends on the circumstances of intention when they were produced. I know of some that were taken innocently

and later repurposed and there are those that were meant to misinform in the first place. Also. Is there an artistic element

included on purpose and what was intended to be accomplished. You can not just ask is it truth or not.

<p>I suppose a "test" of the OP's truth hypothesis would be for a panel to correctly identify the 6 personas being portrayed - but without knowing what the possibilities were. Otherwise all we have are 6 interpretations of the 1 guy.</p>

<p>Without a narrative none of these portraits are telling me the story of the man whether real or not. When you look at an image, you make your own story... your visual perception and interpretation as a photographer or as a viewer is very personal and may be far from the intended depiction.</p>

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<p>When you look at an image, you make your own story</p>

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<p>As a viewer, I feel I owe the photographer or artist enough respect that I try to at least consider to any extent I can what clues I see in the photo that will help me determine what that artist or photographer is trying to express or communicate. When I hear the sentiment that art is subjective or is the story we make up, I feel at a loss because it seems, then, to lose its shared capacity or its communicative capacity. It's a looser and less literal type of communication than what we are doing in this forum, for example, with language, but it is nevertheless important to me not to make others' work completely my own or simply make it my own story. I want it to be a dialogue between photographer and me as viewer or between viewer and myself as photographer. <br>

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And the effect is not always communication or story. It's often a much less definable and more intangible feeling, a visceral reaction that, for me, owes as much to the photo or painting as it does to me when I'm viewer.<br>

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The flaw with this so-called experiment is that it's much too literal. Art and a lot of portraiture just doesn't work that literally. Visual stories are different from narrative stories. When someone tells me that "the moon is made of green cheese", if I came away wondering about the truth of that statement I would have missed the point.<br>

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Now, it is certainly the case that we might want some portraits to be more literal and certainly some documentary and photojournalistic photography to have elements of truth (which is different from any notion of absolute truth). If I do a portrait of my grandmother, there might be times I want the family to recognize something significant about her as a woman in the portrait I make. Those who don't know her may never guess at those things but I might express them clearly enough that most will get a similar read on her. Part of the fun of photography is that it works differently in different contexts and with different amounts of knowledge on the part of the different viewers. I may well think and work and photograph differently if I am making a portrait of my grandmother for the family vs. making a portrait of her for viewers who don't know her. And, even for my family, I might make her into some sort of photographically fictional character that has little to do with who she actually is. I've done such portraits and people who know the subject often appreciate such license. It can give new insights. She might become an actress, a character, in my photographic story. And, still, there might be a lot of truth in that characterization of my grandmother, truth about human expression more than accuracy about my grandmother <em>per se</em>.<br>

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As I said above, there are very many possibilities for how a portrait will work. This experiment seems a very limited and shallow take on the matter.</p>

<p>Faced with an unknown person, it doesn't matter how much information I would be fed prior to the making of his or her portrait, the result would be at the most superficial or chancey. The only way I know to make a portrait of someone is to have spent some time getting to know the person myself, such that however I perceive him or her will have some input into my process of visualizing howe I think he or she might best be portrayed. </p>

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<p>The only way I know to make a portrait of someone is to have spent some time getting to know the person myself, such that however I perceive him or her will have some input into my process of visualizing howe I think he or she might best be portrayed.</p>

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<p>Arthur, while this may be the only way you know to make a portrait and I have great respect for whatever method you would choose as a portrait photographer, I will tell you there are so many other ways to make significant, meaningful, and successful portraits. Several of my own portraits were made having just met the person and not having had a chance to really get to know them at all. First impressions can be a great inroad into making portraits. There is sometimes a very immediate connection between photographer and subject who don't know each other that can cut through a lot of "information" and operate on a gut level. There are so many great portraits made, for example, by street or journalistic/documentary photographers, from Dorothea Lange to Roy Decarava to Nicholas Nixon, and those portraits were made, sometimes, within the blink of a photographer's watchful and perceptive eye.</p>

<p>Fred, you are no doubt quite right about the case of street and journalistic photographers making revealing images of their subjects, but in a way this is a different ball game and not always what might be called a portrait scenario. Photographs of people already under stress or experiencing some sort of a dynamic situation of change can allow forceful images of those persons. It still requires a perceptive photographer like those mentioned to know where, when and the best angle from which to click the shutter. The situation often makes the image and not the understanding of the particular subject other than the causes of stress or of the dynamic situation of change. I would call the result an insightful image provoked by external conditions rather than a portrait.</p>

<p>These external conditions can be subtle or well announced by the subject. If I was photographing women at a woman's rights rally or demonstrators at a strike walkout I might expect to encounter defiance or anger in the faces of the subjects and this would condition the result. The successful portrait in such cases would in some ways constitute a freebee, as the external conditions would have dictated the result to some degree. What we call "portraits" in reporting or street photography are often powerful statements, but that often belonging more to the situation than to the subject. Migrant woman, however powerful as a social statement, was I believe one of those types of "portraits" defined more by the external factors than internal to the person.</p>

<p>Spontaneous inklings into the nature of an otherwise unknown subject can result in revealing portraits. My feeling (w/o statistics) is that they are nonetheless quite rare occurrences and can end up saying as much about the photographer (whatever comes out of his gut feeling) as the subject. I would venture to think that most successful portraits come from a more in-depth encounter and familiarity with the character of the subject. Photography may be the measure of an instant, but I think that the (insightful) measure of a portrait subject requires a considerable multitude of instants (and effort).</p>

<p>Which does not appear at all to be the cases in the example of the OP.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Arthur, we'll have to disagree. I'm not interested in statistics here, so my feelings and personal experience aren't based on them. As a photographer who does mostly portraits, I'll just tell you it's been my experience that I've made some of my own favorite portraits with people I met for the purpose of taking their picture but about whom I knew nothing. Whether the portraits speak more about them or about me is not of great concern to me. That's a theoretical ball game I prefer not to play. Below is a portrait of Juan. I'd never met him and haven't met him since. I spent about 20 minutes photographing him in a local community center. I asked if he felt comfortable taking off his shirt and he did so. I suggested some poses and he adopted some on his own. The lighting was a combination of ambient light coming through the window and some overhead lights. I had not prepared in advance. Since I don't know Juan, I can only suspect that this portrait does capture something of him. I feel as if I can see that in his eyes and carriage. Of course, as with any photo we take, portrait or not, it captures something of me. A lot of people seem to respond to the feel of it and what is expressed. I think we see something we've probably seen in others in Juan's expression. Whether that says more about Juan, more about each of us, or more about human expression, I don't know. And whether we are relating to Juan himself or Juan the portrait subject or simply relating to a grabbing human expression is also anyone's guess. This is not like a scientific equation where we can determine the exact proportions of what exactly is going on and why. I doubt I'm one of the rare photographers who've had experiences such as these. I'm quite sure many portraits are made in a similar manner.<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/5751194-lg.jpg" alt="" width="546" height="720" /></p>

Where does it say photographs are truth?

 

I think I overslept for that class.

 

I was going to enumerate a list of how photographs are not

truthful.

But it got too long fast, and made my head hurt.

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<p>As a viewer, I feel I owe the photographer or artist enough respect that I try to at least consider to any extent I can what clues I see in the photo that will help me determine what that artist or photographer is trying to express or communicate.</p>

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<p>In the end it is still your own interpretation, based on your own experiences, of what was meant to be depicted...</p>