Portraits: What Puts the Icon in Iconic Portraits?

I was thinking about portraits. You know, those often-formal (or not) pictures of people that say something about who and what they are.

My stream of consciousness started overflowing its banks, leading my thoughts to iconic portraits snapped by iconic portrait photographers.

I started asking myself, "What or who mostly makes a portrait iconic? The photographer or the sitter?"

Then, it hit me. Not like an epiphany but more like a fog-lifting awareness which, in truth, is how many things become part of my awareness. (More truth: Rarely does the fog completely lift.)

For the most part, when we see portraits that are proclaimed "iconic," it's very often because of who the sitter might be rather than who the photographer might be. Certainly, that's not an iron-clad rule--think Steve McCurry's Nat Geo photo of the Afghan girl with those feakin' eyes--but, in the world of portrait photography, it's often who is in front of the camera, not behind it, that matters most in terms of creating iconic portraits; make that portraits that, later, are perceived as iconic.

In some ways, that kinda sucks.

I don't know about many of you, and this ain't me getting full of myself, but I believe I can snap portraits that are pretty damn good--photographically good--just like many master portrait photographers have and still do except, in my case and probably yours, I don't have sitters who will automatically elevate my portrait-taking into the realms of renown. Generally, my subjects don't have the juice or position or celebrity or status to make my stuff particularly memorable--regardless of how good it might be--in the minds of the masses... nor is it likely that, as a consequence, any of my stuff will ever be dubbed, "iconic," by whomever does the dubbing.

As an example, if you consider the famous photo of Winston Churchill, snapped by Yousuf Karsh, the one where Churchill has that tough-as-nails resolute scowl on his face, did it really matter who snapped it?

(Update: Here's a link to an interesting account of Karsh's encounter with Churchill. I've read the same or similar accounts elsewhere.)

I'm not taking away from the considerable skills and talent of Yousuf Karsh. The man was one of the world's great portrait photographers! But still, if almost anyone else had shot nearly that same photo, and then that photo became, as Karsh's photo did, a big part of Britain's war propaganda machine against the 3rd Reich during WW2, whoever snapped the image would, quite possibly--perhaps even probably-- be hoisted to a pedestal as a world-class portraitist and, perhaps, even have gone on to be dubbed another "Sir Icon."

(Updated Note: I'm not saying all pics of iconic sitters become iconic pics. I'm simply saying it often takes an iconic sitter for a pic to become iconic... if that makes sense.)

Anyway, read what you will into what I'm saying because, as usual, I'm just saying.

Pic at the top is the Goddess of Glam, Tera Patrick. I snapped it in her home, uhh... I don't remember when but it wasn't all that long ago. The photo certainly does NOT have iconic status nor any other particularly meritorious status. Nor, I'm sure, will it ever. In fact, few have seen this pic much less commented one way or another on its merits. (Or lack of them.) Tera, of course, does have a certain iconic status, albeit mostly within the world in which she has worked.

An Accidental Cookie

I was messing around with this model last night.

No, not that way--I ain't that lucky--we were shooting and, since I had a bit more time than usual, I started messing around with the lights.

Most of my messing around, to my eye, didn't look so cool. I know, as photographers, we're often encouraged to think and shoot outside the box but, sometimes, when we do, outside the box ain't such a pretty place.

BTW, I did get all the pics my client needed. The messing around part was in addition to the expected images.

My model, Miko, was cool with it. The alternative was sitting around, bored to tears, listening to me trying to make witty conversation with someone younger than half my age, namely her, and I think she sensed that-- Smart chick. (We were waiting for my client who was running late.)

Anyway, I was playing around with my ring flash, shooting a lot of crap, trying to decide what I did and didn't like about it. (I'm quite new to ring flash lighting.) After a while, I decided to get it off my camera, putting it on a stand above and slightly behind me. As it was, I was working with limited gear. My client, who usually has some pretty nice Profoto packs-and-heads in his studio, didn't. What I mean is the Profoto gear was MIA, AWOL, absent, whatever. Turned out it was on loan.

Fortunately, I had my PCB/Zeus pack-and-heads with me, plus the ring flash that goes with that system. Unfortunately, I had nothing to modify with. You'd think there'd be one lousy umbrella or something in that studio, but no, there wasn't. All I could find was some diffusion material. I should mention I shoot for this client regularly, like weekly, so I assumed, before heading over there, everything would be as it normally is, in the studio I mean. It wasn't. My bad for assuming.

Okay, at least there were stands. So, I grabbed a C-Stand and a grip arm, put a head on it, MacGyvered the diffusion material in front of it to make the light less harsh, and boomed it behind Miko. This would be my backlight, making some highlights from one side and behind. Since I didn't have a main light modifier, I decided to go with the ring flash. After all, many shooters go with a ring flash and, often enough, nothing else. It all worked reasonably well. Good enough to get what I needed to get, especially for web-site use.

Back to putting the ring flash on a light stand...

The ring flash on the stand worked well enough, especially for messing around. The light was a bit harsher than I usually prefer, mostly because I was working in fairly close quarters on a small set and without a modifier.

At one point, I raised my ass of the apple-box I was seated on, snapped a few, chimped, then realized I had partially blocked the ring flash with my fat head and husky body. (Husky sounds better than many alternative words meaning the same or similar, no?) I started to sit back down so as not to block the light when I thought, "Ya know. That doesn't look *that* bad." Leastwise, on the LCD. So, I got back up and, like a human cookie, or cucoloris, snapped a few more, moving my head and body around in front of the ring flash to alter the shadow effect.

I still don't know if I like the results or not. I'm leaning towards not. The colors got a little weird for some reason I haven't yet figured out; I probably screwed them up worse adjusting in post. Her face is approaching geisha-white, seriously mis-matched to the rest of her skin tones-- a result of the hard-light of the ring flash hitting her face and my soft body blocking other parts of the light, i.e., flagging, softening, and feathering.

I suppose the whole experiment was a little like thinking and shooting outside the box, leastwise, it was thinking and shooting off the box-- my ass off the apple-box, that is. But like I said, outside the box ain't always a pretty place. My ass off the apple box ain't so pretty either. I'm just saying.

It certainly would make more sense to use an actual cucolorus instead of my body for a cookie but, like I said, Miko and I were just messing around. (Yeah. I wish.)

The pretty girl at the top, as already mentioned, is Miko. I discovered that Miko's Mom is Korean and her Dad is Irish and she was born in Germany but grew up in Seattle. Go figure. Gotta love that Eurasian thing, right?. BTW, even though the skin on her torso looks smoothed, I didn't do a thing to it in post. All I did was crop, adjust various levels, burn a few areas, and that's about it. I'm thinking the pic might look okay in B&W, especially with my shadows dancing around on her lower body, but I have too much to do right now--Xmas and all--to be messing around with it in PS.

You Think I Need That Scrim, Jim?

Yep. I do. In fact, how about Jimmy's Scrim Jim?

My Westcott Scrim Jim,that is.

Sometimes, the best tools in our lighting arsenals are the low-tech tools: Tools like reflectors and flags and scrims.

Take a look at those two pics of Dahlia at the top. Both are nearly un-processed except for re-sizing and a touch of Curves adjustment and sharpening. Both were snapped by my good pal, Rick, of Simi Studio, while we were out at El Mirage Dry Lake, shooting the Pretty Girl DVD stuff. Rick captured Dahlia using his Canon 20D. He had set the camera to capture in monochrome mode and, as such, they're not post-prod B&W conversions.

Both pics were shot with early-ish mid-day sun as the primary source. For both, a white reflector was employed, adding fill from below. But there's a difference between the pic on the left and the photo on the right. That difference was a scrim, a scrim with translucent, diffusion material, placed above and behind the model, knocking down the harsh light from the sun.

The hair on the top of Dahlia's head is nearly blown-out in the pic on the left. In the pic on the right, shot a few minutes later with my Scrim Jim added to the mix, the highlights on Dahlia's hair are near perfect.

How'd that happen?

Easy.

By adding a simple scrim with diffusion fabric, we knocked the sunlight down about a full stop and, all at once, the highlights in Dahlia's hair were right on the money!

You don't, of course, need to use a Scrim Jim to modify the light in this way. Any sort of framed, diffusion fabric, like rip-stop nylon, can be used. I know plenty of people who make their own, DIY scrims and reflectors. I have. They work just as effectively.

Personally, though, I like my Scrim Jim because it's easy to set-up and dis-assemble, it comes with its own, handy-dandy carrying bag, it attaches easily to stands and grip arms, plus I have a number of different materials that can be quickly attached, e.g., white, silver, gold, diffusion, black. By using different fabrics, my Scrim Jim quickly converts to a reflector, a scrim, or a flag.

As mentioned, the pretty girl at the top is Dahlia. Photos by (and copyright) Rick H., Simi Studio. Dahlia did her own makeup. I assisted.

The Dishonesty of Glamour Photography

An online acquaintance, photographer Jim Felt, a founding principal in a very successful, Pacific Northwest, commercial photography business, emailed me this morning. Jim said he finally found time to listen to the interview I did, some months back, with the good folks at Photographer&Model.com.

If any of you have some time to kill and you're up for listening to someone babble on about photography, mostly glamour photography, you can do that, through the magic of radio podcasting, by clicking HERE. It's easy enough on the ears as well as that gray thing lodged between them. IMHO, of course.

Jim was nice and said he enjoyed the interview, using words like fun and great and incredibly insightful and boffo!

Okay, maybe I'm lying about the incredibly insightful and boffo! parts but Jim did seemed to really enjoy the interview... or he was simply being nice. Regardless, I'll take compliments, sincere or otherwise, where I can get them although I know Jim was being honest and sincere cuz, well, cuz that's how Jim rolls.

In his email, besides kind words, Jim asked, "By the way, when was (glamour) photography ever honest? It's always been enhanced. Just not to the casual degree that Photoshop has allowed."

I agree.

But then I started thinking. (I have a bad habit of doing that, thinking that is, often when it's least important to do so.) So, I wrote Jim back, tackling the "dishonesty in glamour photography" issue-- Not that dishonesty in glamour photography truly qualifies as an "issue" in the normally-used context of the word. But it does in my world, dammit!

Anyway...

There's nothing new about enhancing glamour shots. Its been done for a very long time. I do so nearly all the time. After all, I'm not a photo-journalist. There's no rules of ethics for glamour photographers. Leastwise, not in terms of the results. My job is to make the best glam photos I can manage to make. That's one of my rules.

When shooting, I'll use whatever tools--tools sometimes used to produce dishonest results--at my disposal. (As effective or sometimes ineffective as they might be.) I use those dishonest tools and processes cuz that's how *I* roll, dishonestly... but only as a photographer, of course.

In glamour photography, dishonesty is often the best policy!

There. I said it.

If you don't find using the word "dishonesty" palatable, try thinking of the dishonesty I'm refering to as "tricks" or smoke-n-mirrors" or "skill and experience" or even the "secrets of the pros" some would have you believe are actual secrets.

Okay. Here's my response to Jim. Thought it would make for an easy and on-topic update:

Obviously, glamour photography has never been honest. That's the whole point--To produce images that glamourize the subjects. Glamourizing a subject requires dishonest techniques to create, what should appear to be and in more than a few ways, seemingly honest results.

(Please Note: Glamorizing a model is not the same as frosting a turd. I'm just saying. In case anyone has that confused.)

In general, life--except for the lives of a few--is not, as a rule, overly glamorous. Glamour photography is escapism, much the way so many movies and books and so much more are purposely escapist.

Certainly, Hollywood's stars, often referred to as America's royalty, have always, paparazzi aside, been presented in glamorous ways. I talked about that in the interview, i.e., the origins of glamour photography in 1930s and 40s Hollywood.

Later, Hugh Hefner came along and the rest is history.

Hollywood stars, supermodels, and glamour models as well, are not common folks like you and I. Well, they might be, and in many ways often are, but not if producers, advertisers, agents, PR people, publicists, spin doctors, many photographers and a whole bunch of the stars and models themselves have anything to say or do about it. Hence, glamour photography is one means to that end: That end being to promote the glamorous aspects, the regal star qualities, the way-more-special, beautiful, sexy, and/or much less common than you or I, aspects of the subjects.

Dishonesty in glamour photography isn't simply accomplished with lighting and makeup and processing and that kind of stuff. Sure, that's part of it. A big part of it. But the dishonesty of glamour photography is in the overall presentation of those so-called, make that creatively-enhanced, "glamorous" people." It's about style and feeling and allure and more.

(A guilty confession: I might have expanded a bit on what I wrote to my friend, Jim, in my email to him. Being somewhat long-winded and fairly opinionated is also how I sometimes roll. Can't help it. They write me this way.)

The pretty girl at top is Cody from a year or two (or three?) ago. Time freakin' flies! I snapped Cody using a few dishonest tools and techniques at my disposal--from production to post-production--including a fan used to subtly blow her hair, dishonestly creating the illusion that her raven mane was slightly moving about in some gentle, in-studio, breeze. (Like someone left a studio window open on a windy day or something.) Here's a BTS shot, below, for those who enjoy BTS shots.


NOTE: if you're a Canuck and still residing in your home world, you might notice I've added Amazon-Canada to my links in the right-hand column. A big thanks and tip-of-the-hat to reader, RovingRooster, for suggesting I also become an Amazon-Canada associate.