LensCulture review of my Woman Portrait submission

August 08, 2020 • Leave a Comment

Screenshot 2020-08-09 at 10.04.15

Hello, Eliza,

Thank you for sharing your work with us. What you said about loving and capturing other people's souls is the very core of good Portraiture. No matter how skillful a portraitist is, if they don't feel the need to express their love for their subject, the result will never be the best that could be. Paul Strand once said: "It is easy to make a picture of someone and call it a portrait. The difficulty lies in making a picture that makes the viewer care about a stranger." This what I am looking for when I see portraits. And when I find it, it means that the photographer has done a great job.

Your photography is captivating, touching, and highly emotive. The monochrome reinforces the emotional load as it is emotive in and of itself. But the fact is that the emotional load of the pictures does not depend on the monochrome and only; it depends on your emotional state during the shooting. You said that you try to make women feel comfortable with you while photographing them, but from what I see here, there is no need for you to do much. I do not know how you look or how you are being while working but your images are solid proofs that the people trusting you. This is a high privilege for a portrait photographer and a passport for reaching the highest levels of your art. I have to say though that some photos work better than others for me. Without dropping the value and effort of the other images, pictures 1, 3, and 4 are the ones that I am seeing a strong connection with the subject, as well as a much more attentive vision full of creativity. Picture 5, on the other hand, feels a bit forced and pretentious. And I see that in both the subject, how she responds to the camera, and in your approach as well. For example, the wide-angle lens combined with the short distance of the subject from the camera gave this distorted perspective that breaks any sense of realism. Your imagery needs realism. I do not mean sterile realism, but the feeling of real connection between the subject and you, therefore your audience. This truthful connection is fully active in the three images I selected, and this makes me care about those women. This is successful portraiture, Eliza, portraiture that captivates the eye and triggers the mind. We are hardwired in connecting with others, even via two-dimensional images. To feel that connection though we need to feel first that what is going on between us and the depicted person is real, and it is not just an illusion that has nothing to do with us. Sometimes that essential feeling of realism may occur indirectly, through a strictly visual quality. This may sound strange but it happens. Picture 2 is a good example of what I mean. Whereas the response of the subject to the lens feels truthful, what is actually reinforces it is the dust and scratches on the pictorial surface. This aesthetic element adds truthfulness in the image, a kind of truthfulness that does not associate with the subject but in the end, it affects it positively. I am not asserting that you have to do this all the time, of course. It is a matter of synchronization. In this case, the subject has been synchronized with the visual qualities of the image, but if you try doing it in picture 1, for instance, it may not work. The understanding of what it works and what is not is a very sensitive, very delicate process that cannot be measured or quantized.

As I said before, the monochrome with its innate emotional load helps your work to express your feelings better. The duotone in picture 1 does the same thing but as the tones are warm and not neutral, it does something more: it widens the feeling of time. Duotones with warm tones, or sepia tones as we call them, associate with the distant past, making the subject look more melancholic. You may take advantage of this particular property of the sepia toning and make work that feels timeless.

To conclude, my answer to your main question is straightforward and resounding: Yes! Your photographs, even the less powerful, are honestly captivating. They speak to the viewer directly and honestly. I am very satisfied with this submission. Nonetheless, I want you to consider my comments as friendly pieces of advice and not as strict rules. I hate rules anyway. They stifle creativity. I wish you the best of luck in this contest.

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Take care.

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Relevant Quotes from Past Jurors

"Does the image tell the story or illustrate the photographer's vision clearly? The difference between a good photograph and a great one can be subtle, but a great photograph evokes an emotion/connection in the viewer. — Patricia Lanza, Director of Talent & Content, The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, CA, USA
"Does the image tell the story or illustrate the photographer's vision clearly? The difference between a good photograph and a great one can be subtle, but a great photograph evokes an emotion/connection in the viewer. — Patricia Lanza, Director of Talent & Content, The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, CA, USA
"What separates a good photo from a great photo is a feeling somewhere between what I feel physically and what I would call an 'aesthetic experience.' It's almost like the beginning of a love affair, you are just drawn to the image, you are lifted off your feet, you are moved. You just have to have it. You want to ask them to dance." — Sarah Leen, Director of Photography, National Geographic, Washington, DC, USA
"What separates a good photo from a great photo is a feeling somewhere between what I feel physically and what I would call an 'aesthetic experience.' It's almost like the beginning of a love affair, you are just drawn to the image, you are lifted off your feet, you are moved. You just have to have it. You want to ask them to dance." — Sarah Leen, Director of Photography, National Geographic, Washington, DC, USA
"When I judge a contest I look for photographs that make me feel something. Anything. I also look for stories that are original. I see thousands of stories a year and most are sadly quite similar. So a story that I haven’t seen before, or a unique approach to a story that I have seen before goes very, very far. Take chances!" — James Estrin, Co-Editor, New York Times Lens Blog, New York City, USA
"When I judge a contest I look for photographs that make me feel something. Anything. I also look for stories that are original. I see thousands of stories a year and most are sadly quite similar. So a story that I haven’t seen before, or a unique approach to a story that I have seen before goes very, very far. Take chances!" — James Estrin, Co-Editor, New York Times Lens Blog, New York City, USA

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