portrait photography

Gianni Guettaf, star of Belgian film 'Animals'

in

I love photographing creative people – musicians, dancers, actors, artists… But it isn’t every day that I have an opportunity to shoot a talent as hot as Gianni Guettaf. The young actor won a starring role in his very first film, ‘Animals’, by Belgian director Nabil Ben Yadir (‘Les Barons’). With ambitions to further his acting career, he came into the studio as Animals premiered across Belgium.

Gianni Guettaf, fearless

He was charming and relaxed, and his face passed so easily from one emotion to another that I sometimes had trouble keeping up. But he was patient and appreciative, and in the end we both enjoyed the session.

Gianni Guettaf, restless

For most of the shoot we played with low-key lighting that gives the images a ‘noir’ feel.

What impressed me in particular was Gianni’s ability to embody complex internal states without recourse either to words or to theatrical facial gestures. Nothing was overstated. I’d say he was a natural.

Gianni Guettaf smiling

Now I’m just waiting for a chance to get to the cinema to see him in the film itself.

Difficult choices

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Choice is a critical part of the photographic process, especially when it comes to portraits. The photographer and the client both need to make a series of decisions in order to arrive at the single image which will represent the client to the world. These decisions include the choice of setting (studio, workplace, home or on location), background, clothing, lighting and framing (head-and-shoulders, half-body, full length). Here I’m going to focus on the way we choose among the images actually shot.

Why I shoot a lot

When I’m approached to set up a portrait session, the client quite often says “I only need one photo”, or “I only need two or three photos”. I explain that a portrait session will usually last at least one hour, during which I typically shoot 200-300 frames. It takes some time for most people to settle down in front of the camera, and to feel sufficiently comfortable to reveal a bit of their personality. And it really takes the pressure off the subject when they know that each shutter release does not have to be the ‘money shot’. From time to time, I’ll show them a few frames as we work. This gives the person an opportunity to adjust clothing, hair or facial expression, or to suggest a change in the setup. But mostly, it just reassures them that they are looking good and that we are making some great images.

If a client highlights one or two shots that they particularly like, I make a note of the frame numbers. But in general I ask them to trust me to select the strongest images from the session. This might seem strange, but the selection process is an art in itself. It’s my job, I’ve been doing it for a long time, and I’m good at it. For the subject, it would be agonisingly difficult and time-consuming, with no guarantee that they would even make the best choices – we are, in general, the very worst judges of what we really look like.

Picking winners

From the 250 images shot in a typical session, I very quickly select 35 or 40 ‘candidates’. I do this by rejecting not only the ones where I missed the focus or one of the studio lights failed to fire, or where the subject’s eyes were half closed or their mouth in a strange position, but also those which just feel ‘flat’. Often, I will pick the strongest from a series of three or four very similar shots. Where possible, I include at least one from each series – standing, sitting, white background, dark background, and so on.

I then work carefully on each candidate frame, retouching where necessary, making small adjustments to colour balance and contrast, and sometimes cropping slightly. As I do this, I generally promote five or six frames as ‘keepers’. I then take a fresh look at all the images I’ve worked on, and usually weed out a few weaker shots or near-duplicates, leaving me with the 25-30 portraits that I plan to deliver to the client.

Alternate versions

Finally, I consider possibilities for making alternate versions of some of the strongest frames – the ones that I identified as keepers. Would they work in black and white? Would colour grading of some kind bring out a different aspect? Perhaps a bit of vignetting would draw the viewer’s eye more strongly to the subject’s face.

In the end, my clients generally receive at least 30 images, including a few alternate versions. I’m aware that many photographers deliver many fewer image files from a session of this length. I also know that I’m giving the clients some work to do. Many have told me “I love the photos. My only difficulty is choosing among so many that I really like.” But I prefer to give them the opportunity to make the final selection themselves – and perhaps to pick different portraits for different audiences or occasions.

The power of the unposed portrait

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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.