What Makes a Good Portrait?

What makes a good portrait? Or, a better question is: where is the point at which a photographic portrait can go wrong?

The second question above is easier for me to answer than the other question, because I know what it feels like when a portrait starts to go wrong.  I get an uneasy feeling.  Usually, I have taken too many pictures.

As an example, if a person or group of people out in public, at a Farmer’s Market, allows me to take their picture, (yes, it is a public place, I do not have to ask, but I almost always ask nonetheless), I have one or maybe two attempts, at the most, to take the picture.  And, all along, I am engaging with them, not moving too quickly, using as a model, the way friends casually take snapshots of each other, because in effect, that is what is happening between us.

If I take more than two pictures, I start to sense that I am intruding.  People tense up at a certain point, and I imagine them wondering --  I know I would wonder: “Oh no, why is she taking so many pictures.  I didn’t sign on for this”.

That is where it goes wrong for me; I have made someone uncomfortable.

One picture, two pictures, that’s it.  If I don’t get the picture I want, there is always a next time.  It is not worth making someone uneasy.

This sort of picture taking is not about a “Decisive Moment”, rather it is a random moment: I need to just let it happen, as I am talking to the person about something else entirely, maybe bread, maybe arugula, maybe eggs, maybe I am answering a question about where I got my bright yellow plastic watch, maybe I am being asked if I want to taste the best olive bread on the planet, by someone who shares away his whole loaf of bread.  It is a moment.  It is getting to know someone with the shared experience of the camera, and the portrait; the camera intruding, but also providing privacy and space between me the photographer, and the person being photographed; it is about who I am just as much as it is about who they are.

I like to share the pictures I take with the people I have photographed.  Sometimes, I make small prints, and bring them the following week, in case I see that particular person again.  This is so appreciated: The farmer’s adult son, who comes with his aged father who no longer participates as he used to.  The mother and daughter bakers.  The man with the fantastic beet tonic.  The people sitting at the picnic table: where are we all from, how did we get here, what are our favorite things.

Even if we don’t have anything else in common, we have this moment, the random one, the one that is not decisive in any way.