Essence in Photograph

<p><strong>I think Avedon comes closer to doing what Karsh thought he, Karsh, was doing and it may be because Avedon didn't feel the need to strive for essence and that may have allowed him to capture more of it, if essence exists at all. I'd say no one captures an essence. What we think of as essence is more a significant kind of input from and alignment of subject, photographer, and viewer. IMO, the open-endedness and expansive character of clues allow for deeper reach than the more quixotic search for essence.</strong><br>

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<strong><br /></strong>I was motivated to post this thread by the quote from Fred G. in the casual conversations forum. See http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00cf1y. To me, there are at least three possibly related questions.<br>

(1) What constitutes a subject's essence?<br>

(2) Is it possible to capture a subject's essence in a photograph?<br>

(3) If so, how? If not, what alternatives exist?</p>

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<p>To give a bit more context to Michael's OP, when I said what Michael quoted, it came just after I included Avedon's words:</p>

<p><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></p>

<p>I think clues are an alternative to essence.</p>

<p>I think essence is an ideal and ideals are hard to achieve. In photography, I find significant and relatable moments and expressions more realistic goals.</p>

<p>The minute I were to think I've captured an essence, someone would show me another side of themselves and I'd be glad for that.</p>

<p><em>"<strong>essence</strong> is the attribute or set of attributes that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity."</em></p>

<p>I'm skeptical of the concept, especially as it refers to a person and their portrait (which is what I was talking about in that other thread). People are constantly defining and redefining themselves and often surprising us in a myriad of ways, if we pay careful attention and don't pigeonhole or stereotype them. There is no fundamental "is-ness" of individual people, IMO.</p>

Since Avedon has been brought up, I think it is a good idea to watch the PBS "American Masters" portrait "Richard

Avedon - Darkness and Light" and the 1999 Charlie Rose interview with Avedon. Both are on YouTube.

The video Ellis referenced is excellent and very revealing - I've loaned the DVD out to at least a

dozen people over the years. Also, the book "Avedon at Work: In the American West" by his

assistant Laura Wilson complements nicely shedding light on his character while engaging subjects.

I like Wilson's book just as much as In the American West as it reveals a lot about his engagement

process as he and his assistants went from location to location.

<p>Well, let's say a portrait of a person is good if it's a good likeness of the person. If it looks like the person then the photograph well captures the essence of their likeness. If you can tell it's them in the photo then the photo successfully captures the essence of their likeness. A good likeness is a distillation of an average look from varied looks where in the result you can recognize the person from their photo, the essence of their likeness. So by the definition Fred offered the essence of the subject's likeness is "<em>what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its" </em>identifiability; you've either captured that or you haven't<em>.</em></p>

<p>But what is a person like? I can't tell what a person is like from a photograph, but there are clues in a good photograph that suggest what a person is like, suggests the kind of personality they have. I don't think it's possible to photograph an essence of personality because personality is too complex to distill into an essence.</p>

<p>I've been doing "documentary" portraits (not pre planned or arranged) since the late 1960's and I can only say that I look for some kind of "energy" in the connection between the subject and me/my camera. I don't know if it is essence or likeness, nor do I care. The human face is capable of an infinite range of expressions which are so subtle they can be called subliminal. I just go by my gut feeling and hit the shutter when I sense the "energy" if and when it happens. There is no time to analyze if it is true essence or likeness. So, I guess I am in agreement with the quote by Fred in the OP's statement.</p>

<p>I find a photograph to simply constitute a fractal, a small if characteristic aspect of what is the subject and possibly also what is the photographer. But this is not true only for portraits but any subject in front of the lens, even the most inanimate of subjects. There is no standardized, calibrated "machine" or device to measure true "essence" in the absence of highly variable human subjectiveness, so no true and unequivocal portrayal of any subject is I think likely, just a fragment that purports to give a partial evidence of the essence of anything.</p>

<p>Reducing an image to simple forms can often be more telling than portraying it with accessories (the serpent tells us nothing about Natasha K, but only emphasizes her sinuous and beautiful form; It is art, though; Dylan in the rain - scrawny looking with an overgrowth of hair, can only suggest the independence or loneliness of a committed artist, but not much else; they are simple fractals or a part of any overall and unattainable full essence). If we can show a fractal or some basic fragment, we may get somewhere in portraying the otherwise complex subject.</p>

<p>I therefore prefer simplicity in portraiture, and also in some of my series work on different inanimate subjects, including that of the following image evoking a 350-400 year old society today. The building is shown not from its more elaborate and more recently modified front view, but in a profile that I think provides a truer account of what its creator sought and saw. </p><div></div>

<p>Portraits sometimes don't tell us much about the person who's the subject. They can sometimes actually show us a side of a person we haven't really experienced. They can sometimes tell us more about humanity or human expressiveness than about the individual portrayed. Gestures, poses, accessories, environment can all play crucial roles in the narrative that a portrait can sometimes be. Likeness is but one significant aspect of portraits, and it is an aspect that can sometimes be dispensed with.</p>

<p>Some of my favorite portraits are ones where I step back and say, "Wow, I would never have recognized him." They show me something I didn't already know. Non-likeness can be illuminating, whether about the individual portrayed or about people in general. A portrait can be about both, the individual and a more universalized sense of the human being or animal as expressive creature. Just as the house pictured in Arthur's photo above is a picture of <em>that</em> house and also a signifier pointing to many other houses and to homes the viewer may have known.</p>

<p>Arthur: "(the serpent tells us nothing about Natasha K, but only emphasizes her sinuous and beautiful form;..."</p>

<p>The serpent suggests lots more since the snake is "one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols." (Wikipedia). Photographic reference is to Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent (Richard Avedon) <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/photographs/richard-avedon-nastassja-kinski-and-the-serpent-5123241-details.aspx">http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/photographs/richard-avedon-nastassja-kinski-and-the-serpent-5123241-details.aspx</a> . The serpent in that photograph then is a major 'clue' left by the photographer that encourages the viewer to go beyond a particular woman's sinuous and beautiful form to consider <em>woman</em>. The photograph speaks these words "Behold: Woman." But it only asks us to behold, beyond appearance, one aspect of woman. So I don't think we can say that Avedon in that photograph captured the essence of woman by juxtaposing to the form of a woman an allusion to whatever serpents are supposed to symbolize, or the myths told about women and snakes, etc. It is questionably one aspect of woman, that aspect given a traditional voice, without our really knowing what that aspect is all about anyway. To use Arthur's word, it's a fractal and I add it is an ambiguous fractal at best.</p>

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<p>Another way to approach the idea of essence as captured in a photograph is a little harder to convey in words. Let's say that there are of domestic dogs about 400 recognized breeds give or take a few. Yet we can recognize all of those breeds as a variety of dog despite the huge differences. So you can say ah ha, essential dog, essence. And dogs themselves I haven't seen get confused by size and form, hair style, etc. Therefore:</p>

<p>There are many times when photography has asked its viewer to recognize our essential humanity. That recognition can really pop for the viewer at times and yet I can't think of any specific examples to link to.</p>

<p>So I think the essence is used informally and like Steve says, it's also thought of as an energy. And all I meant by essence of likeness is that pop of recognition of a face in a photograph, where something as incomplex as looks can be arranged in a recognizable form that is those looks' essence. But that's entirely physical. As to character, personality, just to be clear I'm agreeing with Fred, Arthur, et al that, as I would say it, you can't get a representation of essence because essence is not only complex, it also contains unknowns. It's usually symbol that represents an unknown, signage is just a pointer to the known. Snake as symbol is meant to convey something unknowable about 'woman', part of our human mystery, part of the mystery of life although in, ahem, Western traditions snake has a tendency to be interpreted as mere signage which is kind of crass.</p>

<p>The concept of essence these days can use a bit of multiplication, I think, - not least in the context of this particular thread. And old good illusion should not be forgotten and/or excluded from consideration schemes either. Basically because of its workings are so strong.</p>

<blockquote>

<p> The human face is capable of an infinite range of expressions which are so subtle they can be called subliminal.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Interesting observation. It relates to Malcom Gladwell's book "Blink" and how we make decisions. There is a detailed discussion of thin slicing human "micro-expressions" and how we, subconsciously, read people faces and develop opinions of people in a very short span of time. </p>

<p>Charles: "There are many times when photography has asked its viewer to recognize our essential humanity. That recognition can really pop for the viewer at times and yet I can't think of any specific examples to link to."</p>

<p>It is not easy to recognize humanity in portraits, but some make a good stab at it, albeit in simple terms, as I think does Karsh's Mandela, Bown's 1940s shot of the philosopher Russell, the photo of Cartier-Bresson sitting with his grand-daughter, Marville's Paris square (essentially a portrait of that period and place), or perhaps the Minamata disease photo of a woman and her daughter by W. Eugene Smith. Those partial essences are limited by the range of communication of the photograph, but are quite strong (or convincing), nonetheless.</p>

<p>I am attracted to the comments of Charles, Fred, Steve and others in this OP (some of which I am trying to better understand). The on the surface essences, or basic physical/structural ones, like the 400 dogs example of Charles (they are all recognisably dogs and probably portray similar associated fractals) are in the experience of us all. It may be interesting that essence is sometimes more easily recognised, at least at some basic level, by an outsider (each dog would consider itself more unique), such as the case when we reflect upon those of another nation or culture. The average Japanese probably sees all Americans as having a similar physical essence, or the white Canadian sees all Chinese men as being quite similar. I was told by a friend who visited China that young children often giggled upon seeing European or North American persons, who, contrary to the Chinese are perceived as hairey, albeit friendly, monsters. If we seek some below the surface essence via photographic portraiture, the challenge is greater than the more visible physical essence and, as I believe Fred says, we may only extract a very small aspect of the person's true character, and probably not a very representative one. Karsh may have been a talented one act poney portraitist, but he seems to show the mask or "essence" that is in the public imagination and that of his clients. As creative photographers we can ask for more.</p>

>>> Is it possible to capture a subject's essence in a photograph?

 

No. Of course a viewer can feel an essence was captured having benefit of �à priori knowledge about a

subject. I think some are confusing this with the ability of photos of unknown people having power and the ability to release (some kind

of) narrative.

<p><em>"A good likeness is a distillation of an average look from varied looks where in the result you can recognize the person from their photo, the essence of their likeness."</em></p>

<p>Charles, I'm honestly of two minds on this one.</p>

<p>One, I kind of like the idea of the essence being the look of the subject (though, as I said above I might take issue with too much emphasis on recognizability). When we concentrate on physical looks, we get to take the portrait on . . . ahem . . . face value, which seems appropriate and effective.</p>

<p>Two, though, a "distillation of average" being the essence in question bothers me. Average, and I understand what you mean in terms of a distilled variety and recognition quotient, can be so hum-drum and reductive as to not picture an essence at all. A good portrait will often find the more extraordinary view and still be an essential insight into the person. It's why I think single portraits can be wonderful but often don't quite give us a full insight into the subject. We often build up a better picture of a person in series of portraits, not trying to realize average views but rather showing different exceptional views that, together, might create a more exhilarating and multi-dimensional picture. Range, here, might be more significant than average.</p>

<p>While I don't buy into the traditional notion of essence, it's a workable term and does have meaning to a lot of people. And I'm not sure what a lot of folks think of as essence would be shown by concentrating on an average view as much as by homing in on a bunch of unique and telling ones, some quite different from the others.</p>

<p>Would you get the same essential information if I had averaged these two sides of Gerald together into a single and still recognizable portrait or are you getting more than the sum of the parts and in a sense more of this so-called essence when you see both of them?</p><div></div>

<p>Right, I wouldn't recognize Gerald as the same person in the two photos that you took. And that isn't an issue only with the camera. Note that with my eye as the recordist I don't necessarily recognize a live person from their profile, and I think a lot must goes on unconsciously in the mind's workings to allow recognition of the person before our eyes. For me Fred's use of the term 'range' works better than the word average.<br /> <br /> So if I wanted to know what my great grandmother looked like and my mother showed me a photograph that she thought bore a good resemblance to her: then I would be satisfied that the photo captured the essence of my grandmother's physical looks and that from the photo I could know something about what she looked like. Do I look like her?, for example, might make me want to know what she looked like. Certainly a photograph doesn't have to be faithful to its subject's looks. Essence in a strictly 'physical looks' context really only means resemblance to something where the something <em>can</em> be called their essential looks because by the definition at hand, there has to be something in an essence without which identity is lost to the point where a photo looks too much like someone else to be identifying.</p>

<p>I think that Brad is onto something when he writes of essence generally "I think some are confusing this with the ability of photos of unknown people having power and the ability to release (some kind of) narrative." It might be our faculty for empathy that draws us into such a narrative and creates for us a sense of essence (recognition??) as the term is widely used.</p>

<p> </p>

>>> It might be our faculty for empathy that draws us into such a narrative and creates for us a sense of essence

(recognition??) as the term is widely used.

 

For sure! I think if one knows personally or knows of a subject, one can go out on a limb and say that a photo

compliments or may represent attributes of a subject, which could concentrate into a sense of essence - but that is

with the benefit of �subject à priori knowledge.

 

Without that you're just guessing. Considering Fred's photos above, because I do not know personally or know of

Gerald (other than he might be a friend of Fred), they tell me nothing about his personality, character, attributes, nature, or

other properties of what he is about that would ultimately concentrate into an "essence." I could guess, but that's all it

would be. The two photos do tell me what he looks like in two different situations.

<p><em>"Without that you're just guessing. Considering Fred's photos above, because I do not know personally or know of Gerald (other than he is a friend of Fred's), they tell me nothing about his personality, character, attributes, nature, or other properties of what he is about that would ultimately concentrate into an "essence." I could guess, but that's all it would be. The two photos do tell me what he looks like in two different situations."</em></p>

<p>I think guessing can be a very significant aspect of photos, especially photos of subjects unfamiliar to us. Go ahead, guess. That's what a lot of people are stimulated to do when looking at photos.</p>

<p>When I had my one and only (so far) show, most people who viewed my portraits did a lot of guessing about what they saw. It didn't matter whether they were "right" or not and I didn't offer much in the way of affirmation or denial on what they projected onto my subjects. But I do think it's natural to project and I think many portrait-makers, whether photographers or painters, purposely include things (matter, symbols, signs, props, environments) that will encourage such projections. Some subjects also do that, either intentionally or by default. That way, whether realizing it or not, what's happening is that a relationship is being constructed among photographer, viewer, and subject. They are guesses, but they are still tied to what's being seen. What's important for me as a photographer hearing viewer reactions is not whether they're right or not, it's whether they're sufficiently moved or prompted to project their own imaginations into the portrait. I'm not after accuracy. I'm after a human experience built on visual cues leading to emotional reactions of whatever sort. The connection felt may not be to the "real" Gerald, whatever that is. It's to the photographed Gerald. The photo of Gerald, if there is such a thing as essence, has an essence in addition to, and maybe quite different from, whatever is the essence of Gerald himself. Viewers and even myself as photographer conflating those two things can be where much fun can happen and much creativity can be released.</p>

<p>As Brad said above, and it's well stated, <em>"some are confusing this [essence] with the ability of photos of unknown people having power and the ability to release (some kind of) narrative."</em> That that narrative feels real and convinces us that we know the person shows the empathetic character of both photos and viewers (and photographers who bring them together). The essence of a photo has a great deal to do with the imagination unleashed in the viewer, with the photo's help. Photos can help direct viewers' imaginations and can have a profound impact on them while never being able to fully control those imaginations. </p>

<p>On the other hand, I also think photos of unknown people do carry with them some truths about the people themselves to lesser and greater degrees. And the photos can also fool us. That's the fun part. You just never really know. But I try to leave room for all sorts of possibilities and connections, even ones I don't quite understand or even trust.</p>

>>> I think guessing can be a very significant aspect of photos, especially photos of subjects

unfamiliar to us. Go ahead, guess.

 

My response was not to suggest that shouldn't be done. After all, thats what people do when

contemplating a narrative while viewing a photo - I assumed most would understand that. Rather, my post was to answer the very specific question posed:

"Is it possible to capture a subject's essence in a photograph?"

<p>Thinking a little more about the last point I made . . . Most people who have viewed the photos of Gerald, and <a href="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9728413-lg.jpg">HERE'S</a> one more that's usually seen, have said he seems to exude sexuality. I agree, both from knowing him and I, too, see that quite strongly in the photos. So there's a case where I think the portraits do capture something very real and we can know something about Gerald from seeing the photos even if we don't know Gerald independently.</p>

<p>I think Brad is right that some portraits only go for and only achieve things about the looks, and many do that quite well but they remain, IMO, somewhat superficial and often, to me, less engaging. I think Stieglitz captures something very authentic about O'Keeffe that goes well beyond simply what O'Keeffe looks like. I think Leibovitz captures something very truthful and real about her parents and Susan Sontag in her more personal family photos that are lesser known than her celebrity pics. I think Weston captures something quite genuine about Charis Wilson which goes well beyond what she looks like and I think Dorothea Lange captures something about Florence Owens Thompson that is very personal and real even though it is also representative of migrant workers at the time and has become quite iconic as well.</p>

<p>I actually think many portrait photographers go awry and create lesser compelling portraits because they limit themselves to a more visual and graphical approach to their portraits, not fully committing to them as expressing the reality of thriving human beings who can be to some extent exposed in very real and truthful terms through a photo. </p>

<p>I think that the eessence of a person can often be better seen in his or her work or realisations than in their portrait. I will often prefer to sidestep portraits of the person and look at, query, evaluate and wonder about his or her realisations, which often suggest his or her state of mind and priorities. This is true for many of my friends and colleagues as well as artists I have exhibited in my seasonal gallery.</p>

<p>If someday someone questions my onetime existence I would rather they do so by familarity with one of my realisations, physically or via a series of images, rather than a two dimensional image made by another. That for me would be a truer demonstration of essence. </p>

<p>Arthur, I agree with you and wasn't meaning to suggest that portraits are a better way than others in which to get to know people. I was simply dialing back my own earlier emphasis on portraits being something we can project onto. This thread has been great for me in helping me sort out a variety of sometimes conflicting thoughts I have on the subject. What I am getting at in the last post is not that portraits compare favorably in terms of providing an essential look at their subjects. I was getting at the ways in which a portrait can provide an essential look at a person. And I just don't want to shortchange the potential of portraits to carry and express significant realities about their subjects in addition to providing our imaginations with stimuli and to also telling a lot of (very significant) lies.</p>

<p>There's also a sense in which that old adage about one picture being worth a thousand words is very relevant. That one stilled expression might just give us a kind of insight into someone that a long resume of that person's accomplishments will just not quite provide.</p>

<p>Fred, I can sympathize quite a bit with what you say and understand that a successful portrait can go a long way, and sometimes surprisingly so, at defining the character or true essence of the subject. I am of the opinion that it is a hit or miss situation though, mostly miss (maybe in part because I am not a good portraitist myself) and a minefield in terms of possibilities of capturing a significant moment of the subject that demonstrates its essence. I wonder how many frames were shot of the migrant mother before the more revealing one was obtained? How many shots did Édouard Boubat make of Lella, his girlfriend, before the famous one was obtained and which shows her character (as far as we can tell) and gracefully determined composure (the French say that someone is "well in his or her skin", or "bien dans sa peau"), or when Edward Weston made his girlfriend Tina cry, is that final strong image in any way revealing of the fragility of the Italian actress or just a purposeful lie (we know she was not fragile, but lived as a revolutionary in troubled Mexico) or a distraction from her essence? </p>

This is a great discussion everyone.

With Lange's "Migrant Mother" I'm pretty sure we can find out how many sheets of film she shot, likely there is some

count with Avedon's projects as well, and maybe with Weston's portrait of Modotii as well...but....

 

The number of times the shutter clicks really is irrelevant.

 

I am a little mistrustful of the idea of "narrative" in photography unless we keep in mind that any story based on a

photograph exists solely and uniquely in an individuals mind. See Duane Michals work for example.

 

I also like that in passing it was brought up that any photograph, no matter how literally it visually describes the subject is

an abstraction. A tiny slice of time and light that condenses the visual aspect of the subject seen from one angle into a

representative of the subjects whole or at least a recognizable portion of the subjects entity.

<p><em>"a successful portrait can go a long way, and sometimes surprisingly so, at defining the character or true essence of the subject"</em></p>

<p>Arthur, maybe there's some wiggle room there. Maybe a portrait is not as good at <em>defining</em> the character or true essence but it can still provide a viewer with a unique kind of <em>feel</em> for that character or essence. Photos likely don't define in the same ways as words or personal knowledge of a person's actions and deeds. But they have an uncanny ability to create empathy between viewers and the subjects photographed, or at least some kind of almost unnameable connection that brings them into a relationship. The photographic relationship between myself and the portrait subject is not as literal as the one created by words and first-hand knowledge. But that photographic relationship still can have a significant kind of intimacy and provide a fruitful but different and sometimes furtive kind of understanding. </p>