Originally posted by clackers I think it is, Dan.
I'm not a psychologist.
Originally posted by clackers I think we need to see through the facade and get to the real subject. In that video, each time the wrong person was driving the session and its art (it should be the photographer), and it was not based on truth, it was like the publicity shots for six fictional characters in a movie.
Again, psychologists need quite a lot of sessions to go behind the facade you mentioned.
I don't have the time or expertize to start a profile analysis of the person I'm going to photograph. I try to take a portrait as authentic as I can based on the story she/he delivers. If a young woman comes at a short meeting and tells me something like "Hello, my name is Diana. You were recommended to me by a friend. I would like you to take some portraits of me for a project of mine." And then she tells you she is a painter so you have to reveal that she is a painter in the images you're going to take, in your studio. She tells you that the portraits have to be classic portraits and environmental also and she can bring some props that can help for the environmental portraits. This is what you get from her at the first meeting where you also set a date for the shooting session. What you do, you start searching on internet if she told you the truth or not about who she is? I don't think so. When the shooting session comes you just try and make her/him relaxed and comfortable so that you can get an authentic look from her/him.
Or do you think that we are like priests and the persons we're going to photograph should tell us the truth about them, with juicy details included, so that we can get authentic portraits of who they really are?
We try to capture authenticity based on the story we get from the person who wants to be photographed by us.
In the video all photographers got authentic portraits of the person they photographed based on what they knew about him. That's the beauty of the video. How often do you shoot corporate portraits? I shoot quite a few and often I don't have more than 15 minutes for each member of the executive board to photograph. I know about them what the HR Manager tells me and what I can find from them during the 10-15 minutes shooting session. That's why I go to their headquarter an hour earlier to set the light and get everything ready because I know that I have 10-15 minutes to get the shot for each of them. I make sure the HR manager stays with me and I ask her if the person I'm going to photograph has kids or a dog so that I can start making a conversation based on things I know they love.
Originally posted by clackers The 'customer' or friend or family member or whoever isn't always right.
Most of the time they aren't right. But when I say they aren't right I'm talking about a pose she think it makes her look good, or about a look that she thinks it makes her beautiful and so on.
Originally posted by clackers If you sense there's a lack of authenticity that everyone looking at the photo will be aware of, what you do is to take some safety shots that pander to their initial idea, their ego, so you can say you've done what's in the brief, then also take some shots that you and the rest of the world will prefer.
If you got the time and if the model is open to the idea, then yes, it's nice to experiment and put into practice some spontaneous ideas. In the video I posted I haven't seen a single image with lack of autenticity, on the contrary. From the posing to the eyes expression all images captured authenticity based on what each photographer knew about the person they photographed. To me it's an amazing achievement in 10 minutes and the fact that the model had the same clothings for each shooting session makes those portraits even more beautiful to me.
Originally posted by clackers Then let them make the final choice from the shots taken in the session. If they still choose the artificial ones ... well, you tried, but it's their prerogative.
I always shoot thetered so with few exceptions, I let the model to choose 3-5 images she like most and I choose around 5 on my own and I deliver both of our choices.
Originally posted by clackers BTW, it's experienced models who I find harder to get genuine portraits from. They tend to go through their repertoire of professional poses and expressions, it can take a while of rapport to get them to drop their guard and not be 'a job', but themselves.
That's why I saw that professional models work only with certain photographers for personal projects. That's why I follow Giampaolo Sgura for example. He seems that he is one of the photographers that capture the personality of the international models he work with. Irina Shayk and a few other international models seems to love working with him for both personal and professional projects.