Meaningless Headshots?

From another posting:

 

"My portraits are shot with anything from 21mm to 50mm (equivalent,

many are medium format) and no-one ever suggested a longer lens.

Which is a good thing, otherwise I'd be taking a bunch of meaningless

headshots."

 

-- Jeff Spirer (www.spirer.com)

 

 

Question: Are headshots meaningless?

I didn't say headshots were meaningless, I said I'd be taking meaningless headshots.

 

However, I do notice that very few people find headshots that interesting unless a) they know the person, or b) it's a really interesting face. Then there's the commercial need for headshots.

Apparently they are to Jeff. If you consider Jeff Spirer's opinions to be the golden rule then they would be meaningless to you as well. In which case might as well sell all your photo gear and just buy Jeff's fine work and don't trouble yourself with coming up with your own opinions :)

I've got a price list somewhere...

for me the idea of a headshot is the thousands of photos models/actors carry around with them. <p>

those pix are not by any means a portrait. they are essentially an empty likeness.

i too am not interested in headshots usually unless there's some odd quality to them. i believe my perspective stems from street photography and the importance of context to a photograph. i

shoot (environmental) protraits mostly with a 35mm and 28mm.

50mm is tunnel vision for me. i took photo class at the local

college awhile back and all i could remember was the instructor telling me my shots are too loose and all i said was their shots are too tight. ever since then, i'm trying to use the 50mm more but it's

still pretty strange. i find myself moving back four or five feet away from my subjects and there alway seems people walking between my subjects and i when i'm ready to click the 50mm.

<i>they are essentially an empty likeness.</i><P>

I can think of a few models for whom that has definitely applied. ;

)<P>

I don't think headshots have to be meaningless, but they often

are. The formulaic pap you get from Olan Mills, Wal Mart, and

the like are just as meaningless.<P>

A more interesting question than "are headshots meaningless"

might be "how do you make headshots that are meaningful?"

mike dixon takes some of the most beautiful headshots on photo.net imo.

As a theatre producer/casting director (and photographer) I have several

thousand headshots sent to me each year. It's amazing the gamut of the

quality/style of the shots that I review. Headshots are by no way meaningless.

They are an actor's first introduction, the first step to getting an audition and

hopefully a job. It's a very tough life and a good headshot can be an actor's

ticket to admission. It is unfortunate that there are many headshot

photographers that do little better than to take a glorified passport photo and

pass it off as a "headshot." The really good photographers are those that

manage to capture the essence of an actor's personality, show life and spark

in the face while producing images that actually LOOK like the actor who will

walk into the audition hall. It's really not as easy as it may seem.

<p>

David

<p>

<a href="http://www.dmcphoto.net">www.dmcphoto.net</a>

What you are describing is a good marketing tool. I wouldn't disagree that a good headshot is a good marketing tool, so it can be meaningful as a marketing tool. However, the number of people who look at headshots for marketing purpose is microscopic. I doubt my next show will draw a lot of producers and/or casting directors, unless I can get it moved from Michigan to LA.

Meaningless headshot: a close up of a skidrow bum's face, etched with "character", which makes the photograph "powerful".

Jeff...

 

I couldn't agree more. A great headshot is a great marketing tool, and to go to

a gallery to see an exhibit of actor's headshots would probably be "novelty" at

best. I was just commenting on the fact that "meaningless" is a fairly narrow

way of looking at any art form, photography, painting, film, etc. Each has its

place and very little of it is meaningless. Some pieces may be somewhat

more straight-forward, less interesting and far less thought-provoking than

others but I wouldn't classify any of them as meaningless for that reason. I'm

sure we all have favorite films, paintings and photographs that many of our

friends and peers see as pointless and/or uninteresting. A well done piece of

work is valid no matter what the intended (or unintended) use is. I think there's

a fine line between interesting and dull, between poignant and pointless. I've

also seen a lot of work that intends to be one and is really the other.

I don't have any photos that would fall in the headshot category.

However I do shoot a lot of candids wide angle - like the one

below - where I was probably less than a meter away. Can't

imagine doing this with a long lens from 4 or 5 meters

away...<BR>

<P>

 

 

<center>

<img src=

"http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/WebImages/8-30-03NYCWe

b/image/ny-wendy.jpg">

</center>

Wait a minute. What about Weston's "Tina Modotti With Tear", or "Manuel Hernández Galván, Shooting". Were you guys born yesterday?

"a close up of a skidrow bum's face, etched with 'character,' which makes the photograph 'powerful.'"

 

And don't forget, the more wrinkles, the better. Oh, yes. Wrinkles are where the character hides. That's why I'm so bland; not enough wrinkles.

 

The simple problem with a headshot is that all you have is a face. But the face is where all the character is, right?

 

Except there is no real character. We all communicate by means of facial expressions, using a common vocabulary of expression, and our expression changes with the situation. We all smile, laugh, frown, etc. A face can't show "character," unless you're suggesting that your victim has an unchanging (and therefore robotically monotonous) personality. A face can only reveal how your victim felt (or wanted you to think they felt) at the moment the shutter was open, and of course what they look like.

 

So a headshot is only "meaningful" if you want to call attention to some particular facet of their character.

 

If you want the whole character, you'll learn much more from someone's manner of dress, environment, pose, etc. than simply from their face.

I love environmental portraits. Brad's picture is a fine example, and one that could not have been produced or imagined 50 years ago. The problem is that the idea has been co-opted by the advertising industry so that we are now programmed to ascribe meaning where there is none.

<br>   

I also will disagree that a portrait must reveal the character of a particular individual to be meaningful. That is the object of a hack studio photographer. A meaningful portrait reveals something enduring about the human condition.

Mike, I think the same comments apply to revealing the human condition. Thinking like a writer, I want to see the human condition through characters. And I want the characterization to be more complex than, "Bob smiled a gap-toothed smile and his wrinkles deepened." That becomes not character but caricature, where all old men have gaps in their teeth and twinkles in their eyes.

 

My post above is a little dogmatic re headshots. McCurry's Afghan Girl (for example) has a dirty face and holes in her scarf. So there can be additional telling details in a headshot. And a face alone can communicate what you may want to communicate -- so the Afghan girl can become the universal refugee.

 

But look at the Afghan girl again, on the back cover of Portraits, and you see that the universal refugee is not always shell-shocked and suspicious of strangers.

 

The problem is that photography is inherently superficial. Before everyone gets their panties in a knot, consider that "superficial" means "of or on the surface only." Barring x-rays, that's photography. To overcome superficiality a photo needs to include elements that create some complexity. And headshots, because the language of facial expression is relatively straightforward, can rarely do that.

 

I'm not dogmatic about this, and I don't think that headshots are "bad" or completely meaningless. But I do object to the notion that "character" is found in the face.

Slight correction Jeff, if I may.

 

The audience for marketing headshots is hardly microscopic.

 

Unless you consider tens of thousands of transactions a year to

be microscopic.

 

In reality, the only microscopic audience will be for one of your

shows.

 

 

Which isn't an insult, but instead a compliment.

Marc, the number of people who look at headshots is microscopic compared to the number of people who look at portraits in general, which was my point.

 

Although "fine art" shows draw small audiences, I had a portrait of a champion kickboxer in the paper a few months ago, and I would hazard a guess that in the one day it ran, more people saw it than see headshots for casting/ads in a year.

I'd like to comment shortly on something interesting I read above:

<p>

"The simple problem with a headshot is that all you have is a face. But the face is where all the character is, right?"

<p>

Very right !

<p>

"Except there is no real character. We all communicate by means of facial expressions, using a common vocabulary of expression, and our expression changes with the situation. We all smile, laugh, frown, etc. A face can't show "character," unless you're suggesting that your victim has an unchanging (and therefore robotically monotonous) personality. A face can only reveal how your victim felt (or wanted you to think they felt) at the moment the shutter was open, and of course what they look like."

<p>

Well, that was the dogmatic bit, as the author of these lines corrected in his later post. I think it's somehow very logical, except indeed for the fact that the Afghan girl photo exists, and so many other similar pictures - and some of them can indeed mean the World.

<p>

So, basically, the right face at the right time is all that is needed to mean a lot more than so many images do. A portrait doesn't have to be an environmental portrait by any means to be great. Sometimes, the environment can be read in a person's eyes, or even in his skin.

<p>

"So a headshot is only "meaningful" if you want to call attention to some particular facet of their character."

<p>

Precisely what I disagree with, though it would be true for 99% of headshots. The top 1% of the best headshots list is as good as the greatest environmental portraits, imo. The thing is that great headshots require an amazing intensity to become truly great, and because there aren't that many fantastic headshots, the whole genre is denigrated - which is a pity, if you ask me. There are really photos of faces (full-frame) in which I could delve for a decade and see day after day new aspects of the person and the person's world...

Andrew, I think it is very helpful to provide some context as you have done in mentioning a specific photograph. Without reference to an image or a photographer, discussions like this one can indeed get very dogmatic and ultimately lead nowhere. I don't really disagree with your observations about some portrait photography. I suppose every once-new technique or point of view ultimately becomes a cliché. That said, I do feel there is an axis that runs through all of photography from truth to artifice. In portraits, I would put Arbus at the truth end and Karsh at the artifice pole. In regard to specific images, it is not an either-or issue. A good picture of a person will probably reveal both interesting personal characteristics as well as illuminate more universal traits. For instance, the tight close-up I mentioned of Tina Modotti certainly was revealing of a specific relationship between her and the photographer, but no one can overlook the more general truth and integrity of the portrayal of emotional depth.

Regarding the Modotti portrait, I think I've been clear in the past when I've pointed out that it is different for people who we know or know about. If that hadn't been Modotti, would it have survived? We don't know the answer, but headshots of random people generally haven't survived, because, in general, they don't have much meaning to strangers.

OK, and in a thread devoid of any photographic examples, I am trying this. <p>

 

I have two shots below of the same person. I have both of these images in my "people portfolio." The first isn't quite a traditional headshot (hard for me to do anything "traditional" unless it's paid) but comes close enough in that it gives about as much information as a typical headshot. The second is completely different, somewhat more in the Mexican iconic style.<p>

 

When people see the first photograph, they respond with "She's beautiful." When they see the second photograph, they usually stop for a while, look at it, and make glowing comments on the photograph.<p>

 

If I was shooting her to give her promotional material, obviously the first would be far more useful. But as a portrait in general, the second succeeds far better because it provokes a reaction about what the photograph shows, not who the person is. And this, I find, is the difference between a typical (excluding people we know in some way) headshot and a more meaningful portrait.<p>

 

<center>

<img src="http://www.spirer.com/images/mxgcomp.jpg"><br>

<i>Comparison, Copyright 2003 Jeff Spirer</i>

</center>

I think this is one of my nicest head shots, I can see the little girl's personality.<br><Br>

 

<img

src="/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1781493&size=md"

height=403 width=596 hspace=10><br><br>

 

True, it is far from winning awards, but Meaningless .. I think not.

To get back to the origial topic.. it was shot at 262mm (420mm 35eqiv)

I find Jeff's above example interesting. It does not surprise me that people stop to look at the second photo longer, but I don't take that as evidence that headshots are less meaningful.

 

What I see is that the first photo is about a character, while the second photo is about a story. Those who linger in front of the second photo are wondering what she is looking at, whether the bars in front of her are a window or a cage, what is locked behind her, etc. The first photo does not have such a story; it has only character, which is why I prefer it as a portrait. You can see some sadness in her smile, and it looks as though she's ready to tell you something about herself that maybe no one else knows. With a distracting background, the photo would lose that sense of intimacy with the character.