Technical merit must be there although following the rules is certainly
not a necessity.  Beyond that, the point is to capture some semblance
of the subject's personality.  If you're doing it for money, then the
photograph should flatter the subject.

There is an excellent discussion of this question in the posthumously
published Dorothy Sayers novel, "Thrones and Dominations".  Some
character comments that in making a painted portrait, the painter has
the advantage of the sum of many moments blended together to catch the
character of the person whose portrait is being made.   The painter can
imbue the painting with personal, subjective impressions of the
individual.  By contrast, a photographic portrait selects one fleeting
moment of the range of expressions possible to the subject and is unable
to blend multiple observations into the image.

The true art in photographic portraiture is, then, at least in my
opinion, in finding a way to represent the subject as a particular
personality and character.  It is said of a Karsh portrait of Winston
Churchill that Karsh walked over to Churchill, grabbed the cigar out of
his mouth and took the picture as Churchill remained scowling.  The
famous bulldog personality shone through the image as a result.

Along this line of thought, sometimes a prop is appropriate. There is a
picture of Ansel Adams with his 8x10 camera as he stands on a truck roof
to get a shot.  This illustrates a good way to have the portrait
integrate the human with his work.

Some of the finest portraiture in the history of photography was done by
a photographer with an absolute minimum of equipment and no artificial
lighting apparatus.  Julia Margaret Cameron managed great pictures even
though she made her own glass slides, used a window in a barn for light
control and had a rudimentary camera given to her by her daughter when
she was about 50 years old.  From this I conclude that while modern
treatises on the use of artificial lighting for various effects in
portraiture are excellent sources for ideas, still nothing beats the
simple guideline that you have to know your subject.

Francis A. Miniter

A good portrait must have expression, (this does not specifically mean
bright smile) and impact.
both of these concepts have a wide range of interpretation and examples can
even be contradictory, IE: A lot of really great portraits can best be
described as having no expression, a perfectly relaxed face as seen in most
old masters paintings.

Impact is also slippery.   Impact is the image you remember when you flip
through a whole stack of competition entries and you just know this is the
one so why bother going through the motions of scoring each one.   Impact is
when the composition and all the rest of the image design makes the eye find
and lock on to the subject at first glance.   Impact is the sum total of all
those damn rules and impact is dashing that rule.

What makes a good portrait is creating an image that captures the essence of
a person in a technically proficient way without letting all that stuff get
in the way.

What makes a good portrait is an image that doesn't make the subject look
fat.  (note, as in the other two concepts talked about, this one is equally
confusing as the thinner the subject the more they will say the image makes
them look fat) or at least that's what my clients make me think.

You can talk about the concept of photographer as sculpture with light in
the sense that old Hollywood photogs carved the faces of their subjects on
silver colloid with huge spot lights, or the photographer as a recording
engineer, (the recording of music is supposed to be transparent, the
listener isn't supposed to be aware of the technical production though quite
often it is a significant creative partner)

this drivel is echoed to the z-prophoto mailing list at yahoogroups.com

Once you move beyond discussion of  technical requirements all Art
becomes subjective.

I've seen a lot of weird things pronounced as the "IT" that makes
great art. Once you move the criteria into the subjective realm,
empirical evidence is removed from the discussion, and what remains is
opinion. Will opinion is valid, it is not necessarily "fact" or
"truth."

One word of advice as you continue, remember that just because some
famous guy is quoted continually in art history discourse, it does not
change the fact that his statement is opinion.

Good luck with your quest.

-- JC

Martin Francis, <removethisbeforeyoureplytoMcsalty@btinternet.com> ?
?crit :

The feeling. When an emotion born :)

http://www.monochromatique.com/portrait/

--?
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