The Elements Of A Good Portrait

The Elements Of A Good Portrait

by William Lulow

Note: As a portrait photographer, I write about this subject a lot.

Anyone who follows this blog regularly knows that I specialize in portrait photography and head shots. I have explained the difference before so I won’t go over it again now, but I recently had an opportunity to post my thoughts on portraiture. It was a response to another article created in part by Artificial Intelligence. Any time the human factor is omitted from anything, it begins to ring of, yes, artificial-ness, if there is such a word. Here was my response:

“This article, with its advice, is way too superficial in its approach to the subject. You can tell it was created using AI, and that’s the problem with it. Effective portraiture is largely an intuitive process arrived at through years of experience and a second-nature knowledge of photographic procedures designed to produce quality images. The type of camera one uses or the light source are rarely important. It’s the knowledge of how to use these tools and when to use them that makes the difference between an image of a person and a real, insightful portrait. It’s the knowledge of human psychology and people’s reaction to many different stimuli and how to use this knowledge in a “studio” that can make powerful portraits.”

Now the growing interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has prompted all sorts of attempts to make the process, whatever it is, sound or look like it was created by a human. What AI lacks, obviously, is more of a “human approach.” AI can take some facts and weave them into a narrative, but so far, most of those really reek of a certain phony quality. That’s why they cannot always be trusted to explain a complicated subject.

This is one of my portraits of Diana Vreeland, former editor of Vogue Magazine, fashion doyenne, and, when this image was made, the head of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It was made when I was really at the beginning of my knowledge of light and how it was used to make images. I was actually asked to make some portraits of her while I was working on another project for the museum:

This was kind of a “quickie” portrait and I had to rush around to set it up. Not only that, but I didn’t have my regular, studio strobe lights with me. I did, however have my portable flash units. I set everything up as I would for one of my studio portraits, rushed around to get some books on fashion that were on a shelf nearby and set them up on a table. I set up my camera on a tripod, made some test exposures on 4×5 Polaroid film and was ready to go when Ms. Vreeland walked in the room. “I’ve only got 15 minutes”  she announced in her kind of bossy way. I went about asking her a bunch of questions about how she came across her knowledge of fashion and its history and she began regaling me with stories about how she put together pieces for Vogue magazine and actually became quite animated. In the time I had with her I think I managed to take about 20 images. Don’t forget I was shooting on a 4×5 inch camera with individual sheets of film each in their separate film holders. I had to take out the dark slide, make an exposure, then put the slide back and reverse the film holder. I had to do this for every exposure. It was a slow process indeed, but I was still able to capture her speaking each time. She certainly wasn’t a pretty woman, but I managed to get a kind of revealing pose and expression here, created by my continual asking questions and making her think about what she had done so many years before. I was told that this portrait was on her desk when she passed away. She must have liked something about it.

Doing good portraiture is always about the photographer’s ability to get the subject involved in the process. I often explain what I am doing and always show some results on the digital playback. I used to do this with Polaroids as well. I don’t show images after each one, but after spending some time and getting images which I like, I will then show the subject one or two. I have mentioned that putting them up on a laptop is not a good idea because it interrupts the natural flow of a portrait session. Getting the subject involved is usually a good idea. Whenever possible, I use my hair & makeup stylist to work on female subjects for this very reason. It helps to get them involved so they don’t have the impression that they are just standing there posing.

Here’s another example:

The “before” image was a snapshot taken by my stylist, Jill Harth. Look how the subject radiates confidence in the final image. This is often the type of portrait I am after in the studio. I like to think of it as having the ability to draw the viewer into the shot. There needs to be something compelling about a good portrait. Here is an edited image from this shoot:

Here is another one, but this was done on location in the middle of a performance, but it still has that “look” that makes it interesting:

Even though this was done during a performance, the lighting, expression and pose all contribute to its compelling nature. This is the kind of image I am always after. Because it uses available light and an ISO setting of 2000, it doesn’t have the total clarity that my studio portraits have, but still it captures a “look” and a pose that I like.

Here’s my portrait of a young Ron Carter, well-known bassist in New York City. It was made back in 1975, one of my early portraits. I wanted to show a small bit about who he was so I asked him to bring his bass:

So there is a good deal of psychology involved in making really strong portraits. It is never simply setting up your lighting and asking the subject to sit in front of them. It is always a process of getting the subject involved in the entire process. It is all an exercise in making the subjects kind of lose themselves in the entire process, but as a photographer, one has to be ready to make an image and capture it on whatever medium one wants to use as soon as the person is ready.