More On Making Portraits-Update II

More On Making Portraits-Update II

by William Lulow

Note: This is an article I publish every once in a while to remind us about what goes into making more serious types of portraits. This is the second time I published it because I deem it very important to all portrait techniques.

As I have said, a portrait is as much about the photographer as it is about the subject because many different photographers have often photographed the same people but they always look different based on the photographer’s own style, lighting, background, set and other circumstances. There are some photographers who make their portraits kind of “off the cuff” or with a more relaxed style, while others are more studied in their approach. Some like to shoot outdoors, on location, while others love the studio setting. If you are going to develop a style as a portrait photographer, it’s important to get an understanding of what you like to do and how you like to shoot. Then just set up your shots accordingly.

Since studying portrait lighting and studio portrait techniques with Life Magazine cover photographer Philippe Halsman back in 1974, I learned all about how and why he used the various lighting setups that he did. Halsman was among quite a few photographers who came to be well-known in the late 1940s up through the 1970s. He was there at the beginning when studio flash units replaced the older “hot” lights that many Hollywood photographers used at that time. Things were beginning to change and studio flash units which were lighter in weight and much more portable were coming into wider use. But Halsman’s techniques were readily adaptable from the older lighting units to these more modern electronic flash units.

The principles of studio lighting could be taught much more easily by using the older hot lights because one could readily see the effect of the light on the subject. This, of course, was way before the era of digital photography, and also somewhat before the time that the Polaroid process was invented. So, my teaching techniques even today, often involve hot light because one doesn’t even need to take a picture to become aware of what light can do when it is directed at a person.

With all this being said, light is of primary concern when it comes to making a portrait. It can be HARSH, SOFT, ANGULAR, FLAT, or just plain WRAP AROUND the subject. The kind of light a photographer chooses to use is largely dependent on a few factors:

1. Who will be the judge of the photo
2. What the photo will be used for
3. Where the photo will be used
4. Whether or not the photo has to fit a prescribed format
5. And, how the photographer sees his or her subject

So these are questions I ask sometimes before the subject arrives at the studio.

I have already made up my mind that I am basically a studio photographer. I am always searching for a definitive picture of my subjects, one that will kind of sum up, who they are at that point in time. My technique is to decide on the kind of light I want to use(depending on the subject) and then to apply my knowledge of psychology and human interaction to involve my subjects in the process of making their own portrait. I often tell them what I am doing and how the light will affect them before showing them the digital playback. It often serves to make the subjects actually forget that they are the subjects and makes them think more about what they are doing. So, besides getting the lighting just right, I try to get them involved in the whole process in order to try to find that one moment when they appear to be totally absorbed with me in making the image.

This kind of psychological involvement is really important to achieving a real portrait.

This was one of my early pictures of famed television personality and musical conductor, Mitch Miller, of the “Sing Along With Mitch” TV show in the 1960s. He was one of the first celebrities I had the chance to photograph. I traveled to his office in Manhattan and when I came in he was seated behind his desk. I decided that I wanted to make an image of him conducting from behind his desk. He had a baton on his desk and I asked him if he would mind picking it up and pretending he was conducting, since that was what he was primarily known for, and he willingly obliged. I also remembered that he had a goatee and a mustache so I decided to use a REMBRANDT LIGHTING on him and this was the image I made. This was a portrait because it was my idea about how I saw Mr. Miller, not something he would use for any specific purpose, necessarily.

This is a portrait of Diana Vreeland who was the editor of Vogue magazine for years and later became director of the well-known Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I was doing some work for the museum early in my career, photographing some of their clothes for their “Hollywood Show” when I was asked to make a portrait of Ms. Vreeland. She said she would give me 15 minutes of her time. I quickly rearranged some lights I was using and moved them to a different location. I wasn’t really prepared to do a full portrait shoot, but I just couldn’t say “no” to the chance of photographing her. After all, she was the editor who worked with Avedon, Penn, Hiro and other famous photographers in the city. She strode into the room and I had set up some props, books on fashion, on a table and asked her to stand behind them. We talked somewhat about the Hollywood show and she started to become animated. Even at that early stage of my career, I recognized the importance of engaging my subjects in meaningful conversation. After her original fifteen rolled on to about forty-five minutes, I was able to obtain this image:

On a recent trip to France to see an old, photographer friend, I was thinking for days before the trip of how I wanted to photograph him. I decided that I wanted a picture of him in his studio/atelier, sort of in the middle of working on something. I wanted some of the background to show as well. I packed two of my portable monolights and one small, studio umbrella in my suitcase and couldn’t wait to set it up. We actually waited for a few days and finally, after spending time together, I told him about the shot I had in mind. He agreed and we began to set it up. This was the first image:

It showed his work space, but it wasn’t really a good portrait of him that brought out the intensity of his personality. So I began to change the composition a bit and came up with this one:

I asked him to lean forward and to look up from his work while removing his glasses and was able to make this revealing image. I am always interested in the person in front of my camera, maybe more so than the background. The famous photographer Arnold Newman loved to have his subjects in their own “environment” and as the foremost photographer in the “Environmental Portraiture” movement, he succeeded. My concentration is more with getting interesting expressions with my subjects as well as having the lighting add to making the portraits almost “jump” off the page.

Generally speaking, I prefer to have my subjects looking right at the camera because it is my way of connecting with them psychologically. This doesn’t mean that portraits always have to show the subject looking directly into the lens. But for the shot to be a true portrait, in my opinion, it should really show that connection between subject and photographer. And, you can always see this in the eyes of the subject. Here is a shot of one of my granddaughters and you can see the relationship we have right there in her eyes and how she is looking at me:

If it is purposely set up to have the subject looking away from the camera, it can also be a portrait if it says something specific about the person. There was a famous portrait of actor/comedian Bill Cosby (in his heyday) that I think was shot by former Life Magazine photographer John Loengard. It showed Cosby in profile and in silhouette holding a cigar in one hand and wearing his signature, rimless glasses. Even though it is a profile and you can’t see any facial features, you know immediately that it’s Mr. Cosby, one, because of the cigar and two, because of his Afro-style hair do.

Portraits should be able to reveal something of the character of the subject but in the photographer’s own style. That should always be the goal.