Selective Focus: Portrait
Aaron Reichow, untitled
I thought this week’s theme would be simple, though it did raise some discussion as to what exactly constitutes a portrait. My belief is that a portrait is anything which somehow conveys a being or beings- even non-sentient ones; though sentience itself is a contestable construct (doesn’t our region’s Spirit Tree seem capable of feeling, and perception?). I will leave any thoughts more esoteric than that to you, and the comments section below.
While the month is too soon upon us, the word February derives from a Latin term meaning “to cleanse,” therefore next week’s theme will be “clean.” Send your unwatermarked, signature-less images by Wednesday at 11:59 p.m to tim @ perfectduluthday.com — 1000px at their largest dimension — along with title (if any), and URL of your website, Facebook page, Tumblr, Flickr stream, or Instagram.
Eric Ament, untitled
Tim White, untitled
Stacey Achterhoff, untitled
Kip Praslowicz, untitled
Frank Sander, “My Partner Patricia Canelake”
Frank Sander, “Farmer, Naxi Minority, Yunnan Province, China”
Frank Sander, “My Mother Lisa”
Brian Hart, untitled
Paul McIntyre, untitled
Paul Lundgren, “Pigface”
Brian Barber, “Yellowstone”
Guy Sander, untitled
Guy Sander, untitled
Erin Naughton-Garrison, untitled
Yeah, you’d think that “portrait” would be straight forward. “Portrait” is a laden in a way that other genres of photography really aren’t, at least in my mind. It may be the idea that a portrait should communicate an essence or distillation of the being or thing – unlike a landscape, it’s hard to objectively say that “yes, this contains the essence of so-and-so.”
I’m curious about Brian Hart’s image – wondering if Brian would have anything to share about it?
@REV, It seems Brian Hart needed another dimension for his portrait–multiple 2D images rendered into 3D space and displayed in 2D!
@MADSCIENTIST5580 It certainly looks like something like that is going on, but I was curious about the method and the meaning behind it.
I don’t think that “essence” is a very helpful, or even an attainable construct when qualifying a portrait. Whether an image is expressive is a more productive criteria. What matters to me are the limitless ways “artists” see the people, objects, and phenomena surrounding them, and what they choose to privilege by stating (visually in this case) that this or that is a matter that merits their attention, and ideally yours. Re: Brian Hart, he’s pushing the boundaries of this medium further than anyone I know; not with parlor tricks like HDR, infra-red, collodion plate, or other pictorialistic urges to make our medium more “artistic.” He has an expansive, Tesla-like imagination that insistently wonders “what if?” It’s not my journey, but I’m grateful for his.