“A person is a collage of people warring to become a portrait.”
Jenim Dibie
Why do people have their portraits taken? There are hundreds, if not thousand of reasons to permanently record a person in a particular moment in time. High school graduations, weddings, birthdays, history, for love - or remembrance.
Although every face is unique, when taking a portrait of a tightly cropped headshot, or a full length glamor shot the basics of portrait photography are always the same. So what is behind a photographers thinking when someone comes in to have their portrait done?
Often there are commercial reasons. A portrait and/or wedding studio charges money for their specialization in professional portraits. Sometimes a photographer finds a beautiful face, or a face rich in character that they need to capture. Most often these images do not reveal anything new about the person, instead they only reinforce our already preconceived assumptions.
Yousuf Karsh
Yousuf Karsh
One of the best examples of this is the Yousuf Karsh (b.1908 - d. 2002)“Bulldog” photograph of Winston Churchill. Karsh, one of the masters of 20th Century photography, asked Churchill to remove the cigar from his mouth. After refusing the request several times, Karsh walked up to Churchill and removed it for him. Infuriated by this action, Churchill scowled at the camera as Karsh took the picture.
Although most of the people in the world didn’t personally know Churchill, most had the impression that he was tough, no-nonsense, impatient, grumpy and most of all, serious. After all, he was the guy that stood up to fascism at a time England and the world needed it most.
What Did The Churchill Portrait Tell Us?
But what does the picture tell us beyond that serious facade? Does it tell us how many years he spent in government, or that he was an artist that painted for almost his entire life? Does it tell us if he was married (he was), or how many children he had (4). Did he ride bikes, play chess, fish, or do any other millions of things that he or any other human may do during their lifetime. From this photo, we can’t tell, yet we know there is far more to him than this photograph tells us.
Do Portraits Fall Short In Capturing the “Essence” of a Person?
And that’s where portraits in any medium fall short in capturing “the essence” of a person. The combination of expression, uniform, background, framing, lighting and medium can all point toward a realness, but not the complete realness. A persona can be captured in 1/60th of a second, but not the person. Essence may only be the viewers projection of the known qualities when successfully captured in the photograph.
The “Bulldog” persona that developed during war was only a small part of Churchill the person. The collage of Churchill was much more complicated, as it is with all of us.