So, by this time you must know that I am an artist with a camera who shoots portraits. The heavy book in my lap, edited by the wife of a lawyer whom I knew when I lived in another body, traces the history of the photographic portrait. Where I fit into this ever changing medium has not yet been determined, but I am working on it.
Fascinating that the beginnings of photography and impressionism coincided. As painting went outdoors, aided by the lead tube, the paint brush and the collapsible easel, photography stayed indoors, trapped by its chemistry. The painters escaped the studio, finding their own plein aire truths on the banks of the Seine. The photographers focused their eyes on people and things that didn’t move, establishing themselves as the heirs to the pre-raphaelites. To many, they were not artists, but merely operators of cameras and mixers of dangerous liquids spilled over plates.
The principles of portrait photography remain the same. You need a camera, a sitter and a photographer. The more the three relate to one another, the better the portrait. The equipment has gotten easier to use and more democratic, which might be able to be said about painting. One still needs to be an artist and adhere to age old principle to do good work.
