Chapter 8

image

Mark Galer

Portraiture

The craft of representing a person in a single still image or ‘portrait’ is to be considered a skilled and complex task. The photographic portrait (just as the painted portrait that influenced the genre) is not a candid or captured moment of the active person but a crafted image to reveal character. The person being photographed for a portrait should be made aware of the camera’s presence even if they are not necessarily looking at the camera when the photograph is made.

This requires that the photographer connect and communicate with any individual if the resulting images are to be considered portraits. Portraits ...

Get Photography Foundations for Art and Design, 4th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.