Portraits

To finish of the year, here are some photo portraits spanning fifty years. What is portraiture? How does it differ from any other kind of photograph of someone?

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.