rdo Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 <blockquote> <p>If you are taking a portrait how much importance give you to the beauty of the model?<br> I will be also very interesant to see portrait, that show more of joy and personality als beauty.<br> Or very spontanius reaction of the people and children in from of a camera, with show other kind of beauty inside of them.</p> <p>Thank you very much for your interest and commentary or pictures which you like to show are welcome.....! </p> <p>Ricardo<br /> </p> </blockquote> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josephbraun Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 <p>Do you mean physical beauty? I shot a woman yesterday who was truly beautiful.. inside and out. I think it depends on the shoot that I am doing. Sometimes I just want a gorgeous model (guy or girl). Other times I want something more human and accessible.. It just depends what you are going for.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvy Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 <p>beauty not so much, interesting, yes. you can be beautiful and bland. you can be ugly and interesting.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucecahn Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 <p>Last week I had a really ugly model because I was so tired of the beautiful women. I was very happy with one of the pictures from that shoot. Sorry I can't post it, it was shot on LF film and I have no scanner.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_earussi1 Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 <p>I find intelligence and personality are far more important than beauty in a good model as a dumb but pretty model will give you nothing but bland superficial expressions--boring!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_thomas9 Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 <p>Bruce, I hope that's not your real name because you wouldn't offend those "UGLY models" you shot lastweek if they ever tried to look you up online and they see this post. Good thing you didn't post the pics also.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seismiccwave Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 <p>There are just so many cliche answers because we all want to be proper and politically correct. The reason I shoot a flower because the flower is pretty. The flower has no personality. The reason I shoot a sunset because the sunset is beautiful. The reason I shoot a model is because the model is good looking. We are human beings we like to see pretty things. Once in a while you will see some street photos of some stranger down and out. Those images are there to shock our emotions they are not there to please us.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverdae Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 <p>I enjoy shooting 'average' people. I think it makes me think harder about how to light and pose them.</p> <p>I am a professional portrait photographer, so I don't choose models. One of the most rewarding shoots I did was of a young woman with a mullet haircut from a poorer area that brought one t shirt that had her school logo on it and wore no makeup. I did some rebrandt style lighting and made her glow. I used carefully placed hairlights and just a touch of fill from a reflector to slim her and show the beautiful color of her red hair, but hide the not so appealing cut. Her family ended up ordering 3 16x20's (mom and both grandparents) because it was so stunning. </p> <p>I feel pride in being able to take an 'average' person and show them in their best. I always get much more satisfaction in those shoots then I do with the glam girls who are perfect. </p> <p>I do feel like it depends on the purpose of yuor shot, though. If I was selling an idea and not a portrait, I may have more specific desires for what the model looks like.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htarragon Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 <p>Hansen,<br> You seem to be saying that beauty is either/or i.e. beautiful/ugly. It is not a binary world it is an analog one. If you look at the original post, you will see that beauty can be shown in many ways other than just prettiness. Does the beautiful sunset make you happy, exalted or sad? Portraits are made to evoke an emotional response. Beauty evokes only one response of many. And, of course, what you find beautiful, I may not.<br> Howard</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrossi Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 <p>I've had some rather normal subjects turn out to be very photogenic, and some pretty subjects pose some interesting challenges when certain features showed up more than expected in the camera.</p> <p>I think when you manage to get someone acting how they really are (usually by catching them off guard), you get much more alluring pictures, whether they're "pretty" or "average". So I guess it's not so much how attractive they are in their looks as much as how attractive their essense is when brought out during shooting. And wow, that sounds pretty fluffy, but it's true :)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 <p>I much prefer people who look interesting...<br> <center><img src="http://www.spirer.com/bwidowdec4/images/bw024.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="450" /><br> <em>Black Widow, Copyright 2006 Jeff Spirer</em></p></center> Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seismiccwave Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 <p>Howard, you said it exactly. What I find beautiful you may not. What you find beautiful I may not. So yes I love to shoot pretty things. At least they are pretty to me. They can be ugly in another standard.<br> So my point was that we shoot because we want to shoot. We can bring out the beauty in what ever we shoot. Some are better than others. I don't purposely shoot ugly thinks to provoke others. Some photographers do. That's their beauty, I am just not a part of that.<br> It is very seldom we find someone coerced into shooting something they will throw up after. Unless maybe a war correspondent or reality journalism.<br> Photography is an art and an illusion for an audience to escape reality for a moment in time.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdo Posted January 27, 2009 Author Share Posted January 27, 2009 <p>Again my question with a little bit less mistake:<br /> How much importance give you to the beauty of the model, <strong>when</strong> you are tak<strong>ing</strong> a portrait?<br /> I find interesting point of view of all and also the photo from Jeff Spirer is a gut example. Also accordig all of this and some question that i make myself, IMHO, the concept of "beauty" is relativ to the photograh, also the ability to discover the beauty in others and show to the subject that this beauty is there. Also Fotograf-Subject according to the situation they can play many roll to show this "beauty" according the situation.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Taylor Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 <p>Beauty is for fashion.<br> Not related to portraits whatsoever.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patricklavoie Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 <p>depend of what you want to show as the idea.</p> <p>A trisomic person could give you a superb portrait for a real life subject. I think it depend of your project, and what you are trying to exposed.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdo Posted January 27, 2009 Author Share Posted January 27, 2009 <blockquote> <p>Hello <strong>Ian</strong> about your commentary:<br /> "<em>Beauty is for fashion. Not related to portraits whatsoever."</em> <br /> Maybe i was not enought clear in my question, when i speak about "beauty", i don't mean "Beauty" take this in the oficial formal category of "Beauty"(Fashion).<br /> In one commentary Joseph Braun ask me "<em>Do you mean physical beauty</em> ", that was a gut question, the quality of beauty, that i mean hier:<br /> That is not only physical beauty, that can only be apply only for the category of fashion, it is also extended to the aesthetic value of beauty, the inside quality, that is express when you are make a photo-shooting.<br /> Maybe you will be very interesting for you go to this forum:<br /> <br /> <a href="../philosophy-of-photography-forum/00QdmP">http://www.photo.net/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00QdmP</a> <br /> <br /> That is : <strong>"Photography and Aesthetic Formalism: How Do We Find Aesthetic Value and Beauty in Photographs?", Attila Ataner, Aug 26, 2008</strong> <br /> Best regard,<br /> <br /> Ricardo</p> </blockquote> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofie_dittmann Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 <p>Of course beautiful people are nice to look at, no question. However, I concur w/ some posts here that to me this is always secondary.</p> <p>The main question needs to be: what do I have in mind with this picture, with this model? Will it fit what I'm trying to capture? Just like beautiful is not necessarily not interesting, "ugly" doesn't necessarily mean interesting. The whole premise is wrong.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasma181 Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 <p>If you are trying to sell something, beauty is important. I don't recall exactly when it was, but some of us old timers might remember back to the late 70's or early 80's. There was a brief fad in television commercials where they used regular ( cough - ugly - cough ) people to sell products. That fad did not last long. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusionfoto uk Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 <p>Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ''Normal'' looking people can be just as beautiful as the most stunning looking model. This old lady has a beauty all of her own.<br> <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3082/3202005845_2f0d087a9d.jpg" alt="" width="393" height="500" /></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymondborg Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 <p>It depends what do you underdtand by the word beauty. A portrait is an image which shows a character or personaliy. An old lady can be as beauty as a 20 year old georgous girl. It depends what you are after. Congrats.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_howard2 Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 <p>It occurs to me that as a newbie part of the art of photography is having the ability to "bring out" the natural beauty of any given person / subject. Part of what fascinates me about photography is how some of you talented people seem to have an inate ability to extract the essence of beauty from within the subject. Wow! that sounds rather deep (especially for me!) but I guess what I am saying is that everything / body has beauty - it's knowing what and how to emphasize and what to leave out or hide that makes the difference. Thats where the photography talent bit comes in. Me . . . I struggle, but am inspired by all the fantastic examples you guys post. Many thanks for that. Pete.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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