The Infinite potential of Posing
November 1st, 2023
Portraits are about people, usually the person in the photo. Though that’s not strictly true. Sometimes the person we are photographing is a transmission, a medium for an idea, or is serving an altogether different purpose. Sometimes what seems like a portrait of a person is truly a portrait of their environment. This is different from an Environmental portrait… I think.
However, today is about the Infinite Potential of Posing as a conveyance of a feeling. What a sentence. Portrait photographers spend a lot of time thinking about form. Questioning how we can find something new, unique, beautiful, haunting, thoughtful, in a pose. Whether it is a single person, a couple, an entire wedding party, dictates the way we might explore the human form.
We’ve all been posed before. It started very young for most of us. Class Pictures, primarily a way of documenting the milestone of another year, and cementing in time our terrible decisions regarding fashion and hair. I’d throw in a picture of me in grade ten for context here, but I assure you, they have all been destroyed. (Just google Doyle Von Frankenstein for reference)
So, since childhood we have been instructed on how to comport ourselves in front of a camera, but until we’ve been forced to pose another person in a more considered way, we likely will not have a full appreciation for the importance of a pose.
What are we trying to say in our photograph? When making a portrait, who is it we are photographing and how are we telling their story? Or more accurately, which PART of their story are we telling?
This portrait of José was for the artist bio in his first published volume of art. We knew we wanted to show his studio. We knew we wanted to express the simplicity of his process, but the intentionality of each piece that surrounds him. We wanted your eyes to wander, but to always be pulled back to his face. I knew that I wanted his left arm to open up and create a frame showing the contrast between the warmth and structure of the lines of his wooden desk and the mess of papers on the top. The shape of the opening also mimics the pattern on his shirt. Placing him on the right of the frame helped use more of the natural light in the studio, while giving space to explore the materials on his desk. I like this portrait. But I actually think it is much, much stronger when couple with the second photo.
His pose in the second photo is a mirroring of the first. It emphasizes the vascularity on his arms, which matches the lines of his jeans. Something about him wearing adidas sandals also just struck me as such a juxtaposition of the rest of the studio and his attire. Although, José being of Ecuadorean descent, I shouldn’t have been too surprised. Together these poses explore José as an artist. Sadly, they will only ever be seen together here on this blog and on social media, as his book will only include the first.
I’ll leave one more photo here, something to think on. I won’t wax poetic about this one. Just see how it makes you feel and ask yourself what their pose telling you.
Chiokoe Utte’esia,
C
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