The power of the unposed portrait

November 01, 2021 in portrait photography

I make a lot of posed portraits – wedding photos, company headshots, studio portraits. This year, I have probably photographed more than 500 people in this way. I love the work, and my clients are almost always delighted with the results. But I believe that the portraits I make in less formal settings – above all when the subject is unaware of the camera – reach another level of artistic interest, even when they are less than perfect from a technical point of view.

Why is this? I think it’s because most people put on a special ‘look’ in front of the camera, even when they are trying not to. Selfies are an extreme case, of course, but have you noticed that the pictures people make of themselves don’t really look much like them at all? The facial expressions they adopt when they are thinking about the images that are being captured mask their thoughts and feelings, and therefore hide their real personalities.

As a portrait photographer, it is always the real person – in all his or her complexity – that I am trying to see. People are never so interesting or so beautiful as when they believe themselves to be unobserved, when their thoughts are turned inward, allowing their emotions to play freely across their faces.

In the 1950s, American photographer Harry Callahan photographed women on the streets of Chicago, and produced a body of work entitled ‘Women Lost in Thought’. I don’t know why he chose to focus only on women, but I suspect that like me what interested him was the ‘interiority’ of their faces.

I also enjoy photographing people on the street, but I shoot people in other situations, too. I’ve made portraits of long-distance runners which have an extraordinary ethereal quality. And I’ve shot a series of images of couples dancing which I also like very much. Whether they are running or dancing, these people‘s faces speak in a very direct way of the sensations of effort or pleasure in which they are immersed.

Making unposed portraits has informed and enriched my formal portrait work as well. I’ve learned to see, and even to anticipate, the right instant to release the shutter. And I’ve learned to distract my subjects from thinking about how they look by chatting with them, or by getting them to do something such as putting on a leather jacket. I’m pretty sure it’s in these moments, when they are thinking of something other than the portrait, that the best portraits are made.

LOCKDOWN-Europe

May 18, 2020 in photoreportage

Belgium was officially locked down on 18 March. We went indoors and stayed there. We stopped going to work. We stopped going to school. When we had to, we hurried out to the shops, but as soon as we could we hurried back home again. Brussels’ 1.3 million inhabitants were confined, and the additional 350,000 who normally commute into the city each day were asked to stay where they were.

Brussels was transformed. Immediately we noticed how quiet it was, and how clear the air was. And once we’d got over our initial panic, we established new routines. Those who could worked from home in casual clothes. We dug out old sets of Monopoly and long-forgotten jigsaw puzzles. We kept in touch with friends and lovers via Instagram and TikTok. We learned how to use Zoom and Jitsi, and got in touch with people we hadn’t seen in decades. We washed our windows.

And we started to inhabit our streets in a new way. We greeted neighbours and even total strangers. Bonjour jeune homme. Bonjour madame. Goedemorgen meneer. Can I help you? After all, we were all living through something remarkable, strange and difficult. We were being asked to stay inside, but when we did venture out we tended to linger – at a safe distance, of course – to ask one another’s news and exchange views on the government’s handling of the crisis. Children rode their scooters down the middle of the street. The cars had gone!

On 21 April, I was approached by a German photographer, Oliver Heinl, inviting me to take part in a Europe-wide project to document the Covid-19 lockdown. Oliver’s idea is to collaborate with one photographer in each of Europe’s 47 capital cities. He gave us ‘carte blanche’ to approach the project in any way we wanted. Each will submit six images to create a record of the European lockdown. He hopes to mount a travelling exhbition and (if he can attract funding) a publication.

All my planned jobs had been cancelled as soon as the lockdown began and I’d received no enquiries since then. So I was thrilled to be working on a real project again. I ventured out for a series of short walkabouts in my own neighbourhood of Ixelles, and I also shot people passing in my street from my front window. I explained the project to almost everybody I photographed and they loved the idea. I’ve submitted my contributions and the first photographs are already online. You can check them out on the LOCKDOWN Europe website as the project progresses.

Walking around Brussels

August 15, 2017 in street

When you walk around London or New York, and probably any other city of more than 5 million inhabitants, you feel as if you were shrouded in an invisibility cloak. As soon as you leave your own front door, you assume anonymity. When occasionally you do bump into a friend, you fling your arms round each other. "What are you doing here?" you both ask. "How small the world is!"

With a population of just over 1 million, Brussels is a big village. I started recognising faces on the street within a couple of weeks of arriving here in 2004. Now, I very rarely go out without meeting someone I know. Social, cultural, professional and local networks overlap and interconnect. Distances are short. Friends knock on one another's doors in the hope of a cup of coffee, but are not disappointed if there is no one at home.

I walk around the city a lot, and I always have a camera with me. I am not sure if the photographs I make count as street photography, which seems to have strict rules. I take pictures of people, but also of buildings, signs, street art, or anything else that catches my attention. Brussels is strong on whacky charm, so there is no shortage of subject matter.

You can find more of my street photographs here.