Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.—Friedrich Nietzsche
Whenever my wife made work trips to Albuquerque, New Mexico, sometimes she would drive there and I often accompanied her on those journeys. After arriving and having lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant, The Frontier, I would find myself doing PhotoWalks in locations such as Old Town and Nob Hill. One day, while enjoying a cup of tea outdoors at a Starbucks on Central Avenue, I saw a group of young women having lunch and heard one of them say to the other, “You can’t capture the essence of a person with a photograph.” This made my ears perk up!
Metaphysically we could argue all day about what constitutes a person’s “essence.” Some might say it captures a subject’s “deep, true spirit rather than temporary moods” and I’m sure Nietzsche would be the guy to have a conversation with about that. Someone on Reddit postulated that “a person’s essence is the intangible impression they give off through their overall presence and mannerisms.” I like that one.
Whats is a Person’s Essence…Photographically?
I think most photographers would agree that, when making a person’s portrait, or headshot in the case of this featured image of Kim, that it’s not only possible but also desirable you capture,at least, something of their essence. Otherwise, it’s just a picture of a person having their portrait made. It could be that in some people’s minds the idea of a portrait is limited to a cell phone selfie, which I believe is the farthest thing from capturing anyone’s essence.
Since it’s #filmfriday, I went searching my negatives and Photo CD scans for an example of where I thought I captured a portrait subject’s essence that was made when I was using a film camera. I started my search with images of Kim, who may just have been my first ever muse during the film era. When it came time to select an image for this post, I wanted to pass along the story behind this image for any aspiring portrait and glamour photographers out there:
Even though the images Kim and I made on our first shoot were quite good, I believe any photographic relationship with a model takes time for each party to become fully comfortable when working together. But when it happens, it’s magic! When working with any new model, it’s been my experience that even while photographing a professional model, it may take some time for both parties to become comfortable with one another. How long of a time it takes for a collaborative relationship to develop depends on both the subject and the individual photographer and model. If you;re lucky, it can happen during your first shoot,
How I Made this Portrait: The image at right was created during Kim and my third shoot , which happened about one year after our initial session together. I remember the exact instant when I clicked the shutter on this photograph as if it were yesterday: It was the same moment when I realized that every one of the images we were making that day would be great! This is similar to what happens during The Three Phases of Photographer’s Creative Life. That trend of excellence continued over the next several years that Kim that I worked together and before she moved out of state.
I photographed Kim in the space between the living and dining rooms of my former home using available light with (maybe) a reflector placed at camera right. The image was made using a Contax 167 MT, similar to the one I recently re-acquired, and a Carl Zeiss 85mm f/1.8 lens using Kodak color negative. I can’t remember who processed the film but scans of the film were made using Kodak’s original Photo CD process. They were opened using Lemke Software’s GraphicConverter producing fairly good quality image files but the software is not without its quirks for those photographers, like me, who are using older computers and operating systems. The digital file was lightly retouched after which I applied the Pro Contrast filter from Color Efex before using the Glamour Glow filter also from Color Efex.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($3.50), click here. And if you do, thank so very much.
Several photographs of Pam appear in my book Available Light Glamour Photography that’s available from Amazon with used copies of the book for $49.94 as I write this. The Kindle version is $27.83 for those preferring a digital format.