Thoughts on the 6 pics of the same guy

Sean, they copied your many flavored portraits!!!!

it has been a Looooooong time since I did any meaningful portraiture. I recall engaging the individual and learning not so much about them, rather what did they want others to see of/in them. Soft, hard, etc. I suspect the actor didn't provide strong commentary of what he wanted his story to be - we won't know really, but it is interesting how each story was reflected.

might fiddle with this on the weekend for kicks and grins and see what comes up.

Mike

Ha....no hats. So Sean still has a few tricks on 'em.

I saw that yesterday. Pretty interesting. I wish they had given each photographer the same story, then we'd see some true artistic differentiation. As it stands, I wonder how much of the difference is the preconceived notions of what each "type" of person should look like. But, it is striking the differences.

I thought it was a pretty interesting experiment. I feel like the photographers' own preconceptions - and possibly experiences in seeing portraits of "similar people" – had a big effect on how their own portraits turned out. And don't get me wrong, the latter isn't a bad thing. Good artists copy concepts; great artists steal them and make them their own. ;-)

I am not convinced that it was an exploration of different artistic statements as opposed to being a study in how the labels we use so freely obscure our ability to see what is actually in front of us. To call it a demonstration of the power of preconceived opinions might be a more accurate depiction of what it is.

Warning: Below is a rant and a cynical view of it all.

It was about deception. Good or bad, people do it all the time... they try to portray themselves in a certain way. Some do it better than others; some twist reality more than others; and some do it in a more profound way than others. But the reality is everyone is trying to present themselves in a certain way. Clients of Photographers hire the photographer to portray a predetermined image of the person or company. If money is involved... then the more the deception is justified and potentially the further it is from reality. Marketing folks spend millions on creating a deception of who someone is or what a product is. As a photographer, you are asked to provide a level of legitimacy to the marketing plan... be it corporate, political, non-profit, or even portraits. Even the high school portrait will try to portray the subject as a great athlete, an accomplish musician, etc., by putting the subject into those posed situations. They may be bench warmers or 4th chair, but that is how they want to be identified... so the photographer obliges.

It is a deception. Most are not insidious, but some are. It is up to the consumer, voter, Face Book'er, etc. to sort through the deceptions and see if it matches with reality. If it is to big of a departure from reality, then it is time to distance yourself. Unfortunately, there is not a lack of people without a moral compass, and we are bombarded with deceit like never before. It used to be people want to be famous, and being infamous was a really bad thing. Now there are more and more that want to be famous or infamous - they do not distinguish between the two and either is acceptable (and it is easier to infamous).

As a photographer, you need to make the decision as to how much you are willing to alter reality for the sake of the story line (marketing). If the deception is reveled, are you OK with being infamous for the sake of the story line?

Pat

I enjoyed the rant. :-)

I agree with what you said. The ironic thing is that we live in the information age – yet there's so much misinformation out there that sometimes it's hard to differentiate between fact and fiction, objectivity and bias. Finding solid, unbiased sources of information that you can trust is paramount to truly understanding the positive and negative aspects of this world, formulating a world view (or determining your own perspective), and making positive life choices.

Interesting idea...I enjoyed the "rant" as well.

I saw the whole thing more like a psychology experiment to see how ideas pre-planted in someone's head would affect the final product.

Sort of a different way of seeing how we are susceptible to prejudice.

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Originally Posted by Joel Eade

I saw the whole thing more like a psychology experiment to see how ideas pre-planted in someone's head would affect the final product.

Sort of a different way of seeing how we are susceptible to prejudice.

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That is what they wanted you to walk away with. It was also a pre-planned deception to push that agenda, and photographers are very susceptible to being trapped by that deception. If any subject had walked into any photographers studio, feed him with bad information, and asked for a portrait the depicts me... that photographer is going to do his best to provide a picture that depicts that person in the way they presented regardless of whether it is a lie or not. You only have a short time with the person to determine the essence of that person, and you make the assumption that the person sitting in front of you is giving you relevant information that matters to them... otherwise, why would they be wasting your short time together explaining the most trivial part of there life. So you assume it is important to them and it is factual.

So now, in this case, you get someone who has an agenda and wants to perform a PSA about prejudicial thoughts. In order to prove his point, he creates a series of falsehoods and deceptions, that any person with any trust in his fellow human-beings is going to fall for hook line and sinker. Did they prove their point, or did they just prey on the good nature of the photographers that were trying to portray the picture that was painted for them?

Maybe both?

You're right though.....why mistrust a total stranger coming in for a photo shoot? No one would.

On the other hand, even if I suspected they were feeding me a line of s$#t, rather than confront the person I would probably do the shoot to the best of my ability to please the client (another basic trait of a good photographer)

Who cares if it's truth or fantasy? As long as you don't mis-represent what you've done. No harm done after all. Another form of "glamour shots" perhaps.

Perhaps it should be question that is asked. How is it that you would like to be portrayed? It is not my job to judge you, rather, you ask that I use my talents to produce an image pleasing to you, so what that might be? Your audience will be your judge, not me.

If it were photojournalism where there is an effort to tell a truth (there is really one, a dime has two sides, there are many opinions, there is only one fact(s)).

This effort wasn't photo-journalistic. I am not a portrait kind of guy - I did some 30 years ago, (oof I am old) but that was of people well known and asking for a portrait that supported their public persona.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joel Eade

Who cares if it's truth or fantasy? As long as you don't mis-represent what you've done. No harm done after all. Another form of "glamour shots" perhaps.

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I think that is a far assessment, and I agree.

What bugs me about what this guy did was he skewed the data to justify his preconceived thoughts about peoples prejudices. It seems to me he had a mind set that people judge, or even worse discriminate based on preconceived mind sets. Then he set up a lie and went about proving it by playing off peoples naivete, trust, and unwillingness to be confrontational.

On the other hand, it does help to confirm something I have always suspected. That is, if an outgoing person comes in, spills their guts to a photographer, and communicates it well; it is going to be easy for the photog to develop a shoot in his head and the client will probably get good results and feel it represents him well. However, if a introvert/humble person comes in and has a hard time communicating or (more importantly) selling themselves, then that person may not end up with a good representation of them-self if the photographer was not able to get them to open up. And once again, the humble person gets the shaft. However, this is where a photographer needs to be a really good people person to effortlessly draw information out of people and assess what is important and what is not. The technical side of photography can be taught for the most part, but to be really good at portraiture it would seem to me that you also need to be a really good people person and great communicator in order to be consistently good across many different personalities. Probably the same for most good leaders.

Sorry... way off topic. The rant lives on.:)

I don't think the point was "Ha, ha, I fooled you, sucker!" It was more of "Open your mind. Don't just plan the stereotypical shot of person X."

Perhaps an inmate would prefer a friendly shot to a brooding image that reminds him of his past. He might not realize it until you show him. Think of how many ways you can portray your client, and figure out what works best together.

Not much of an experiment. Isn't portraiture about fantasy anyway?

I remember my senior pics over a few years (lie) ago. Even in those days they cleaned up your pics and got rid of your acne and defects. It is how you want to look.

I see it as a photographers flaw in this video. Your told someone is an ex con or a former alcoholic. As a good photographer would you shoot someone with that perspective? Wouldn't you dig past that, does this person doesn't want to be represented that way any more?

Photography is a medium to tell story's with, and pictures do lie. Photo journalism is probably the worst, they represent what is supposed to be fact and is often not. I have worked on many high profile projects, often they are in the paper or on the local news cast. I can tell you from first hand knowledge that the press seldom gets a story accurate. Another case in point is the US presidential candidates, almost every picture of Trump in an article lately is with his mouth open and yelling. Maybe it is all fantasy and entertainment anyway and press photos are just used to get ratings, regardless I still think Bill Clinton as first man would be very entertaining regardless of your political beliefs.

"....artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

---Evey Hammond "V for Vendetta"