Posing models - photography vs other visual arts

[feppe]

I have relatively recently started doing portraits, and am trying to get my head around posing models. Most photographers I've seen seem to take the approach where the model strikes a pose, they take a picture, and on to the next pose. Sometimes there's some tweaking going on, or even guidance, but the final photograph is largely a product of going with what works, serendipity, and luck.

But other visual arts (painting, sculpture, etc.) have a very different approach: you have only one shot at it, so the artist and model pose very deliberately.

There are surely pros and cons to the different approaches, as well as limitations due to the nature of the mediums. I was wondering how do other photographers pose their models? Does anyone get even close to the painterly posing method?

[blansky]

When I first started in portrait photography 30 some years ago the "correct" way to pose people was sort of a Rembrandt type pose. Joe Zeltsman was the master and almost all studio portrait photographers copied his approach and this continued on with his proteges. There was masculine and feminine tilt of the head. The "S" curve for women and so on. The lighting was generally a Rembrandt lighting or a loop lighting and the modeling of the face was achieved by correct placement of the lights.

The other approach is the fashion approach where prefessional models prance around posing and the photographer uses a couple of umbrellas or softboxes and the model has freedom of movement. The modeling or contours of the face is achieved by make up.

The two approaches are two very different disciplines. Of course these days the overly posed portrait is sort of passe and a merging of traditional posing and a sort of journalistic approach is generally used.

You have to remember that studio portrait photographers worked with the public, perhaps overweight, perhaps not traditionally beautiful so skills had to be learned to photograph in a flattering manner and thats why traditional lighting and posing existed.

Imagine taking an untrained average person and try to make them look beautiful in the same way that a fashion photographer uses a trained skilled skinny model. Probably wont fly.

Michael

[Geoff Wittig]

When I first started in portrait photography 30 some years ago the "correct" way to pose people was sort of a Rembrandt type pose. Joe Zeltsman was the master and almost all studio portrait photographers copied his approach and this continued on with his proteges. There was masculine and feminine tilt of the head. The "S" curve for women and so on. The lighting was generally a Rembrandt lighting or a loop lighting and the modeling of the face was achieved by correct placement of the lights.

The other approach is the fashion approach where prefessional models prance around posing and the photographer uses a couple of umbrellas or softboxes and the model has freedom of movement. The modeling or contours of the face is achieved by make up.

The two approaches are two very different disciplines. Of course these days the overly posed portrait is sort of passe and a merging of traditional posing and a sort of journalistic approach is generally used.

You have to remember that studio portrait photographers worked with the public, perhaps overweight, perhaps not traditionally beautiful so skills had to be learned to photograph in a flattering manner and thats why traditional lighting and posing existed.

Imagine taking an untrained average person and try to make them look beautiful in the same way that a fashion photographer uses a trained skilled skinny model. Probably wont fly.

Michael

Then there's the 'fashionable celebrity photographer' approach like Martin Schoeller's, where the intention is apparently to make the subject look as weathered and unattractive as possible by using a large format camera in nose-hair-counting close-ups. Anybody else see Nadav Kander's portfolio of Obama's team in yesterday's New York Times magazine? Egads! Every subject over-lit, and carefully processed to starkly demonstrate every pore and blemish. On the strength of that evidence I'd only hire him to shoot people I dislike.

[bill t.]

Anybody else see Nadav Kander's portfolio of Obama's team in yesterday's New York Times magazine? Egads! Every subject over-lit, and carefully processed to starkly demonstrate every pore and blemish. On the strength of that evidence I'd only hire him to shoot people I dislike.

But OTOH I think those shots carried a great sense of no-nonsense power and purpose.  Blunt reality, the very essence of our current situation.  I don't think the effect would have nearly as good with kinder renditions.  It is very liberating to do portraiture when you aren't working for the model.

[Rob C]

.  It is very liberating to do portraiture when you aren't working for the model.
[/quote]



But would that include having no client other than yourself? An interesting concept. It sort of touches on an earlier moment  where reference was made to professional models, but if you remove the business aspect, then it becomes increasingly difficult (for me) to grasp quite why anyone might want to do it.

Everybody has seen portraits of wild men with lined faces - rural versions of Keith Richards, you might say - but I would prefer to photograph the Keith than the unknown and my feeling is that if you remove either financial incentive or the other kind of incentive that travels with notoriety or the ultra-beautiful,  then you might not be left with very much.

We flirted with the concept some longish time ago, perhaps a time best forgotten, when there was a ding-dong here about naked ladies posing for a guy whose name I don´t know. The trouble then stemmed from the differences of opinion between those who saw that the poor old empress was naked and the other faction that admired her sable and ermine.

It strikes me that portraits of plain people might be the same old road yet once again, an alternative to the lens tester´s brick wall.

Rob C

[jjj]

But OTOH I think those shots carried a great sense of no-nonsense power and purpose.  Blunt reality, the very essence of our current situation.  I don't think the effect would have nearly as good with kinder renditions.  It is very liberating to do portraiture when you aren't working for the model.

Another one here who liked these portraits.
I think those who moan about the 'boring' lighting/background [I've seen other threads attacking these images] are those that are not really portrait photographers. As the subjects were what was important in these, not fancy lighting and they were captured really well. Each shot seemed quite individual and I actually liked the lighting myself, it's a bit ringflashesque [it's not ring flash though]. Though not sure why people describe it as overlit, as to me that means overexposed, which is certainly not the case with these images.
Which can be found here BTW
Inaugaration shots


Rob - I'd forgotten that you object to photographs of people that aren't officially 'beautiful' models.
Though if you want an example of a plain person, how about Kate Moss, yet she is one of the world's top models.

[jjj]

When I shoot people, how I pose them depends on the context and what sort of picture I want.  If doing portraiture, I want to capture the person, so I manipulate them into being comfortable, rather than tell them how to pose. With models or dancers, I may give explicit direction of what I want them to do to get the shot I have in mind. Though a lot of it is observing people and asking them to go back to a position that they may have only fleeting passed through whilst doing something else.

[Rob C]

[

Rob - I'd forgotten that you object to photographs of people that aren't officially 'beautiful' models.
Though if you want an example of a plain person, how about Kate Moss, yet she is one of the world's top models.
[/quote]


No, I don´t "object" at all anymore; I just don´t want to do it.

Kate never struck me as plain: she struck me as one of the most plastic of people, in the good sense of the word, as in adaptable, to grace the world of print. You have but to look at the beautiful stuff she did/does? with Nick Knight to see the positive. The negative? I don´t want to get sued for no better reason than attempting to prove an unimportant point!

But that´s photography, all things to all men.

Rob C

[Geoff Wittig]

Another one here who liked these portraits.
I think those who moan about the 'boring' lighting/background [I've seen other threads attacking these images] are those that are not really portrait photographers. As the subjects were what was important in these, not fancy lighting and they were captured really well. Each shot seemed quite individual and I actually liked the lighting myself, it's a bit ringflashesque [it's not ring flash though]. Though not sure why people describe it as overlit, as to me that means overexposed, which is certainly not the case with these images.
Which can be found here BTW
Inaugaration shots


Rob - I'd forgotten that you object to photographs of people that aren't officially 'beautiful' models.
Though if you want an example of a plain person, how about Kate Moss, yet she is one of the world's top models.

I guess I should have been clearer; I dashed off my post on the way out the door.
—Kander's shots were obviously lit with large umbrellas to both right and left, producing very flat lighting essentially similar to that of Martin Schoeller's recent close-up portraits. I didn't mean over-lit in the sense of over-exposed; rather that the intentionally artless and flat lighting calls too much attention to itself instead of the subjects. Just my opinion of course; everyone's got one, just like...

[jjj]

...noses?
I find it odd that you think flat lighting calls attention to itself, I think it emphasises the subject. As in reality that's a quite neutral, fairly natural + simple form of lighting, whereas more complex lighting set ups are by definition more contrived and draw attention to the fact that the subject has been lit, rim lighting for example. But as the complex lighting schemes are more prevalent, so maybe the simple lighting style stands out by default.

[Rob C]

[q. But as the complex lighting schemes are more prevalent, so maybe the simple lighting style stands out by default.
[/quote]

Proving yet again, if ever proof were needed, that photographic style is nothing if not cyclical!

Rob C

[blansky]

In my opinion, "simple" lighting is a duplication of what nature supplies. Meaning one light source, and a reflector much like what we see in real life. In old masters art studios, a north flat light was supplied with windows and skylights and a reflector was used to fill in the shadow side.

As we progressed in portrait photography we just added a couple of kickers to add three dimension to the equation.  The Obama people were photographed in the typical fashion lighting style only the lights were closer to the subject. This is much like the style of Avedon in his work out in the field of "ordinary" people.

As I mentioned previously, photographing ordinary people with fashion lighting is not very flattering. But remember, the photographer is not being paid by the subject but by a third party. I doubt that many of these people would be overly flattered by these pictures.

You could argue til the cows come home which style, the Rembrandt style or the fashion style is more revealing of character, essense, or whatever but that to me is just marketing. A skilled photographer with one light and a reflector could have made these same photographs and there would be people fawning all over them as incredible and others saying they didn't like them.

Personally I like them. They are interesting. Hardly orgasmic but interesting. And that's the point.

Michael

[afalco]

Maybe I'm the only one here who find Kander's pictures very stimulating and not just very well executed? I'm not American, have almost no knowledge about the people portrayed, but it didn't take me long to realize that the photos depicts the social and administrative status of these people and not their personal qualities. The flat lighting works very well with these kind of portraits IMO.