tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15322620.post776524182473576646..comments2024-01-11T18:39:50.665+00:00Comments on Painting With Shadows: Portrait or Product? - and Episode 78 of Understanding Photography with Kim AyresKim Ayreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02656677501116622953noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15322620.post-89715565852955714052021-10-08T21:05:19.441+01:002021-10-08T21:05:19.441+01:00Ben - there are certain shots I am asked to create...Ben - there are certain shots I am asked to create for authors, actors, staff etc, where a warm, relaxed smile is an absolutely crucial part of the photo. They have to appear friendly and welcoming. As such, the lion's share of the time in any such photo shoot is not taking the photos, but using all sorts of ways to get them to relax in front of the camera so their smiles appear genuine and not forced.<br />However, in the case of a private shoot, or for someone where warm, welcoming friendliness is not the overriding concern, I will immediately do away with smiles and work with a thousand other possibilities.<br />These photos are always much more interesting to look at and fun to take :)<br />Kim Ayreshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02656677501116622953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15322620.post-30949429430633911182021-10-01T12:43:35.942+01:002021-10-01T12:43:35.942+01:00The "product or person" distinction that...The "product or person" distinction that you draw is really interesting. Now you've alerted me to it, I see it all over the place, eg in people posing for holiday snaps.<br /><br />But it seems to me that "product" photographs are so universal and persistent that they must they must be meeting a need for the people involved. In the case of many of them (baby photographs and studio family portraits are examples) there's a documentary or occasion-marking function. You see quite a lot of paintings in art galleries doing a similar job.<br /><br />There's a studio photo of my grandmother and her 6 children in existence. None of them are smiling. This may just reflect the need for a long exposure in the 1930s, but maybe it was a conscious style. I've just googled "famous portrait photographs" - almost no smiles there either.<br /><br />In contrast, we all have occasional unposed photographs of people that, by chance, catch a fleeting expression that encapsulates that person perfectly, even if the photo is technically bad. Here, the expression is often a smile. <br /><br />This makes me wonder if the issue with many of the studio "product" photographs is not that they are "product" photographs per se, but that they are trying to be two things at once - a documentary picture and a here's-happy-me picture - and the strained smiles required by the latter are spoiling the former.<br /><br />So might the "product" parents & baby pictures work better if people presented themselves as a different kind of product, and didn't smile?<br /><br />As well as thinking what story a photo is/should be telling, should we also be thinking about what job(s) the photo is doing for the people involved? Which might include whoever finds it in the bottom of a drawer 50 years later. <br /><br />Ben<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br />Ben Cravennoreply@blogger.com