The defining characteristic is that these are all more or less posed. The sitter contributes to the result by intentionally making an expression, or holding their body in a particular position. The sitter knew that I was waiting to click the shutter. The trick is to make the image not look like a mugshot.
I learned a lot from my evening classes with Jorge Lewinski decades ago at the London College of Printing (now London College of Communication) when I was working as a photography assistant.
The final two images are of the painter Emmanuel Levy, who was a student at Manchester School of Art at the same time as L.S. Lowry. Both studied under Pierre Valette. Emmanuel Levy's charcoal portait of me can be found here.
