Portraits Are For Life
Portraits Are For Life
A photographic portrait is a great many things to many different people but most importantly a portrait is an everlasting representation of you the moment it was taken. A sort of time capsule, if you will. Portraits evoke memories and emotions. A portrait can bring back the times of joyous youth or they can remind you of your personality and how you looked and the way you dressed in times past, though I’m sure not all people enjoy that aspect. A portrait is a memento that should be carried with you through the rest of your life to ignite and carry on the legacy that you’re building now. Amongst all this: a portrait is for life!
Our daily lives have been full of photographic portraits since their inception. Just think of how proud parents adorn the walls with their cherished children, grandparents build photographic shrines to their families, loved ones carry portraits of they’re loved ones everywhere they go, hard working breadwinners display they’re family on their desks as they pay the bills and social media ensures the first thing anyone new sees of you is a portrait. Portraits are the now!
Picture this: It’s thirty years from now on a rainy day. An impulse leads you to start dredging through all the old boxes you’ve set aside for such an occasion. You come across a pile of prints. All of which are portraits from different times in your life. Imagine remembering your life now. What do you see? What do you remember? How does it feel? Everyone, is of course, different; however, the catalyst for all of those emotions is a portrait. An imprint of times past that can revitalise dormant memories at any time.
Now, the only caveat is that not all portraits last forever. There are the images you never want to see again. These portraits are often full of bad haircuts and fashion faux pas’. Think back to your school portraits. Does anyone keep those? Does anyone dare actually ever look at them? Society has tricked us into believing that the reason we hate the school portraits is because of ourselves. In actuality, it’s because they’re bad portraits and bad photography. Just think back to them for a moment and you’ll remember the long queues of hundreds or thousands of students standing in the photographic “assembly line” waiting to sit down for 30 seconds each under the same lighting set up with the same horrible mottled background. It was neither a fun experience nor was any effort put in to make a good portrait of you the subject.
Sadly, the trend of late in portrait studios across the world has been exactly this. Portraiture nowadays seems relegated to a single lighting set up for all subjects despite the common knowledge that there is no single lighting method that is flattering to everyone. It’s undermined by trends and fads spurred by technology. For example, can you honestly tell me that in 20 years time, you won’t cringe at the black and white photo with your eyes or a bunch of roses in colour that epitomises the late nineties and early noughties? Digital technology has allowed for the “machine gunning” of images and thus, far too many “photographers” make their selling point quantity where there is no quality. Portraiture in a lot of “portrait studios” is no longer about photography. It’s no longer about memories. It’s only manufacturing. these “portrait factories” will churn out thousands of low quality, heartless images a day with no care for the significance a portrait can hold in someone’s life. The defining factor that many people use these “portrait factories” is usually cost. All I can say to that is that old adages are old adages for a reason: you get what you pay for.
When I provide my portrait services, every session is unique. The lighting is styled and tailored to each individual in order to catch you, the subject, at your very best. Each image is carefully and painstakingly retouched to bring out the very best. Each single image is a relic, a memory, an emotion that means as much to me as the creator as it does you the subject. To me, every image is personal and lacklustre portraits do nothing but reflect on me the creator. I believe in quality and I believe in the everlasting.
