Portraiture has been a well established genre of photography since its very beginning in the 19th Century (Bates, 2009; Soutter, 2018).
Traditionally, portraits, whether painted or photographed, provide a ‘site of identification and projection’, their main focus lies on the individual who is depicted while ‘inviting us to relate ourselves to the person or people in the image’ (Soutter, 2018: 18). It is, in Soutter’s (2018) words, ‘a humanistic enterprise, wrapped up in the project of reading, understanding and reinforcing what we know about human subjectivity.” (34).
At the same time, Bates (2009) argues that ‘portraiture is more than just a picture’ (67). Instead, ‘it is a place of work: a semiotic event for social identity’ (ibid). Similarly, Soutter (2018) remarks that trough that depiction of the subject’s social identity, portraits have the ability to convey to the viewer ‘a sense of what they (the subject) are like’ (18) . Furthermore, Soutter (2018) quotes art historian Richard Brilliant, who describes portraits as ‘purposeful constructions that present a particular proposition about a person’ and whose aim it is to ‘elicit a psychological response from the viewer’ (ibid).
This last remark in particular, relates very poignantly to my own project in which I used self-portraits to convey a specific feeling of the subject with the aim to trigger an (emotional) response from the viewer, in my case specifically the reminder of the precarious state the Earth is in and the effect this has on us humans.
Even more so, in my project, I sought to employ what Bates (2009) calls ‘projection’, which describes a specific way of reading portraits in which ‘the viewer casts off uncomfortable feelings, which arise in themselves and relocates them within another person or thing’ (82).
In practice this meant using the four key elements of portraiture (face, pose, clothing, location) in order to create a specific ‘rhetoric’ within the image (Bates, 2009: 73). Bates (2009) argues that through the combination of these four elements, portraits are able to construct meaning that goes beyond what is depicted.
In my case, I mostly played with different facial expressions and poses, to a lesser degree with the aspects of clothing and location, although the latter one could broadly be associated with the use of different props (like sand, ice, or flowers) and type of background. In fact, Bates (2009) adds that the use of other, familiar ‘photographic codes’ such as lighting, framing, camera angle, props etc. provides a way of controlling and adjusting the four key elements of portraiture (73-74).
What this means in relation to my project is for instance, that through use of softer light for the ‘biodiversity’ shots, I was able to emphasise the fragility and vulnerability of both the subject and nature (embodied here through the flowers).
Similarly, a close up camera angle as well as harsher, bright light used for the ‘desertification’ theme, almost draws the viewer into the photograph, allowing her/him to not only witness but also feel with and for the subject.
According to Bates (2009), facial expressions are crucial in portraiture since they ‘exert a considerable impact on how a portrait signifies meaning’ (74). They give the viewer an insight into the mood and state of mind of the subject in front of the lens. At the same time, most people know that the specific expression of the person photographed does not necessarily describe ‘a fixed state of being’ and so, seek to look beyond this layer of the portrait by evaluating elements such as the pose or clothing/outfit (Bates, 2009: 75) .
The pose in portraiture in particular ‘connote(s) all kinds of aspects of a perceived character (mental, physical, social, etc.) of the person depicted’ (Bates, 2009: 76).
In the context of my project these ranged from feeling trapped (behind the plastic sheet), in denial (of the melting ice literally above our heads) or numbed by and wanting to hide from the prospect of a deserted future.
Through these different postures and gestures, I tried to ’embody’ the subject’s ‘psychological attitude’ (Bates, 2009: 76).
References:
Bate, D. (2009) Photography: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg.
Soutter, L. (2018) Why Art Photography? 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge
