Portraiture
Mar. 24th, 2004 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plumtreeblossomMy friend J took one look at my theatrical headshot and immediately observed "That's not you."
He's very right, and very astute. The headshot, taken about six years ago, is a $350 collaboration between multiple artists, and me. The photographer with the studio in Southie. The professional makeup artist who spent 45 minutes designing me. A lighting assistant. And dear Peter, who came with me as court jester to coax my smiles for the camera. It's an artistic end product, not a portrait.
Monday night there was a stack of photo enlargements we were looking at that I'd brought over, photos going back through different eras of my life. All of the others photos were taken by good friends who were photography buffs and/or amateur shutterbugs, gifted at capturing essence above compositional correctness. Its been epochs since I've looked at them and longer still since I've shown them to anyone. In these, I'm not wearing any professional makeup job, the lighting is whatever nature provided at that moment, and both the flaws and the strengths of my face are captured just as the eye would have taken them in. These are portraits. I've always been aware of that difference, but J was the first person who has ever voiced the same sentiment to me, rather than cooing over the craftsmanship of what a long gone $350 bought.
That really meant a lot.
He's very right, and very astute. The headshot, taken about six years ago, is a $350 collaboration between multiple artists, and me. The photographer with the studio in Southie. The professional makeup artist who spent 45 minutes designing me. A lighting assistant. And dear Peter, who came with me as court jester to coax my smiles for the camera. It's an artistic end product, not a portrait.
Monday night there was a stack of photo enlargements we were looking at that I'd brought over, photos going back through different eras of my life. All of the others photos were taken by good friends who were photography buffs and/or amateur shutterbugs, gifted at capturing essence above compositional correctness. Its been epochs since I've looked at them and longer still since I've shown them to anyone. In these, I'm not wearing any professional makeup job, the lighting is whatever nature provided at that moment, and both the flaws and the strengths of my face are captured just as the eye would have taken them in. These are portraits. I've always been aware of that difference, but J was the first person who has ever voiced the same sentiment to me, rather than cooing over the craftsmanship of what a long gone $350 bought.
That really meant a lot.