History of Portrait Photography

[artofheadshots]

<p><strong>Modern Portrait and the Ageless </strong> <br /> Mona Lisa or La Gioconda is debateably the world's most famous portrait painting, painted by Leonardo da Vinci 1503-1505/1507. <br /> <br /> Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry taken for the National Geographic Magazine's cover image in June of 1985, considered by some, the greatest film portrait photograph. <br /> <br /> Our top image at photo.net - all time portrait at photo.net by photographer Paul Dzik of Stargard, Poland. January 2, 2005. <br /> <br /> What direction are we going with an inflation of images posted in google, facebook, linkedin, and any other Social Media? Leonardo da Vinci took years of hard work to accomplish his painting, now an individuals headshot is posted every couple of months? A new Art of Headshots is being born or dying? What direction is portrait photography moving, or taking a circle? <br />

[Matt Laur]

<p>While the Mona Lisa is now in the public domain, the other two images you've posted here are not. You can link to them, but not reproduce them here without their owners' permission. Otherwise, you're involving PN in your copyright infringement. It's all spelled out in PN's <strong><a href="../info/terms-of-use">terms of use</a></strong>.<br /><br /></p>

[jtk]

<p>Matt Lauer is obviously right. The moderators will probably fix this shortly.</p>

<p>Ringo T's seeming-self-promotion is amusing and not a crime :-) The topic would be more interesting with a specific thesis or question.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Ringo</strong>, the big difference I noticed in the three portraits you posted were the gentle softness of Mona Lisa's eyes compared to the over-sharpening in the two photographs. There may be a tendency to misinterpret "the eyes are the window to the soul" to mean "focus on the eyes at all costs to everything else." Something about windows that's so interesting is that they're not all so crisp and clean. I love looking through old Victorian windows here that have that incredible irregular waviness. They allow me views of the soul of San Francisco.</p>

<p>Leonardo is the only one of the three portraitists to have provided a background that has a profound effect on and is an integral part of the portrait. His is a portrait, not a head shot.</p>

<p>The inflation of images has little effect on my work (at least that I'm aware of). I express myself and a niche of viewers views my work. Where it may affect me has less to do with numbers and more to do with a look. Cell phone snaps are interesting enough to me that I may want to start exploring a certain way of photographing that is influenced by or acknowledges that "genre." Others are already doing it. Sometimes building intentionally on what others help you see because they're doing it haphazardly can be a turn-on.</p>

[jtk]

<p><br /><br />"Afghan Girl" isn't McCurry's best Nat Geo work...but it's popular...works well online, was promoted actively by the Magazine (posters etc). I saw more attention paid in gallery to McCurry images that were more evocative of the people as individuals and village situation, weren't eye-centric or young/pretty (many in that village do have blue eyes, but we wouldn't be as interested in that detail if the "girl" was a sun-tanned Swede). </p>

<p> Fred's right, IMO, that there's a distinction between head shots and portraits. For me it has to do with engagement with a subject as opposed to production of marketable commercial image. Nothing wrong with either/both. "Executive portraits" are mostly just headshots of people in suits.</p>

 

[artofheadshots]

<p>Hi John and Kelly,<br>

I suppose the images have been brought down, because of Matt's complaint... I am not sure if I agreed with him as these images have been displayed in photo.net and wikipedia ( public domain ), he isn't a portrait photogapher.<br>

Afghan Girl has a unique expression in her face, she is both beautiful, mad, young, naiive and wise. Her eyes expressions are powerful. The Mona Lisa, well its - Mona Lisa!<br>

I see your interpretation of the difference of Portraits vs Headshots, true... <br>

Thanks,<br>

Ringo</p>

[mike dixon]

The images were removed because posting them is a violation of photo.net's Terms of Use, not because of Matt's "complaint." If you wish to continue posting on photo.net, please read the Terms of Use (Matt provided a link, and there's a link at the bottom of every page) and Community Guidelines and abide by them.

[GerrySiegel]

<p>Ringo, I have no advantage of seeing all the photos referenced, although I recall well the Afghan girl with green eyes who can miss it as it reappears all the time we look around. Greatest portrait, not a chance of that, a fascinating one of a green eyed beauty in her prime (and her mature years she lost <em>some</em> of that youghful enigmatic charm if you followed the followup guy who tracked her down in Afghanistan) . <br /> Re your posed Q. I do not think the glut of shots and headshots in particular take away from the skill of a serious top pro portraitist. Especially one who does enviromental portraiture. The close cropped head shot has, true, become a sort of pablum and boring.<br /> Like much popularized art expression, the cream will rise to the top. And analogy. MTV has had an influence on movies, as some succcessful MTV directors bring their (dubious skill of fast cutting) to theatrical movie production. The verities have not changed have they? Classics remain classic. My opinion for what that is worth. aloha, gs</p>